


When the Wind Is Southerly

by bellatemple



Series: Hawk from a handsaw [3]
Category: Haven (TV)
Genre: Altered Mental States, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood and Injury, Gen, Kidnapping, Time travel aftermath, canon-typical weird metaphysics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-09-25
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:34:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 27,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24883129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellatemple/pseuds/bellatemple
Summary: Sequel to "They're All Blood, You See". First, Jennifer thought she was crazy. Then she found out she was troubled instead. Now that a monster has done a ride-along in her head, she's not sure about ANYTHING anymore.
Series: Hawk from a handsaw [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1586179
Comments: 51
Kudos: 15





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Jennifer's head in a very interesting and entertaining place to live. Hopefully you think so, too. 
> 
> Anyway, this thing is a long time coming and hasn't actually been finished yet, but I think I've finally found the thread that'll get me there. . . .

Jennifer knew exactly three people in town. Oh, she knew _of_ a few more, had spoken to a whole bunch in passing, but there were only three of them she'd actually had more than one conversation with. And of those three, one of them was in the hospital because she'd gotten herself possessed by a monster who had been _really excited_ about torturing him. Which meant she had watched her own hands hurt him, had felt her own heart leap with glee when his eyes had rolled back in his head at the pain. 

So, yeah. She was definitely going to talk to Duke eventually. Just — maybe not while he was still swathed in bandages and hooked up to machines. 

The one she knew next-best she hadn't tortured — so _yay_ for that — but he was still all hyperfocused on his magical-girl girlfriend, whose alter ego happened to be the mean-girl daughter of the monster that had been in Jennifer's head. Which — awkward. And Nathan and Audrey were apparently, like, extra joined at the hip these days? Which was great for them — probably — but Jennifer didn't actually _know_ Audrey. She was pretty sure she actually knew Mara better. And again, that way led to creepy monster-in-my-head flashbacks. 

So no thank you, Nathan. 

Which left Dwight. Whom she had neither tortured nor taunted nor — actually even _seen_ while Croatoan was camped out in her brain. 

"Jennifer!" Dwight was in his office in the Haven police station, which she had officially been to more in the past week than she had any other police station basically ever. Even as a reporter. She'd bragged to Duke that she'd worked on murder investigations before, but honestly, that'd been during her stint as an entry-level proofreader at the Boston Globe. And "don't worry, I've read about murder investigations before" didn't have quite the same reassuring ring to it. "Can I help you with something?" 

"Lunch," Jennifer said. Dwight looked bemused. 

"You want my help with lunch?" 

"I — yes. Yes I do. Because I've been here a week and the only restaurant I know is actually mostly a bar." She shrugged, giving Dwight her best bright-eyed cub-reporter eyes. "Also, I had an evil otherworldly asshole in my head for two days and I really don't want to be alone right now." 

Dwight let out a little groan and dropped his chin. "Right. Yeah. Of course, that's — I'd love to get lunch. Let me just finish up some of this paperwork?" 

"Of course!" Jennifer pointed to the pile and nodded. "What form do you even use for 'civilian consultant used own blood to burn the suspect out of innocent bystanders'?"

Dwight huffed a laugh. "That gets filed under 'gas leak'. And Duke's not — official, here. He'd probably be insulted if we even asked." 

"Aw, come on. He could be your . . . whatsitcalled. CI!" 

"He'd _definitely_ be insulted if we called him that." Dwight's phone rang, and he sighed. "Want to go wait in the bullpen for a few? I promise I won't be more than ten minutes. Tops." 

Jennifer nodded and bounced back out of the office — then settled into more of a mopey slump once she was out of his sightline. She knew what 'ten minutes tops' meant in the real world. She'd give him twenty. And if he hadn't come out of canceled himself by then, she'd go to the Gull after all. 

A margarita sounded pretty good right now anyway. 

Dwight came out just a few minutes later. Jennifer sat up hopefully — then deflated when she saw the look on his face. 

"No lunch, then," she guessed. 

Dwight blinked at her, then shook his head. "No, sorry. There's something — troubling — happening at the library. And my two best trouble wranglers are, uh. Otherwise occupied."

Jennifer bit her lip, fighting a brief battle with herself, then decided. "I can help." 

Dwight hesitated. "That's not a good idea," he said. "Dispatch says it might get violent." 

"I can _help_ ," Jennifer said again. "I'm not afraid of troubles, and I'm a great investigator." She tilted her head. "And didn't Nathan say you were a cleaner, not a detective?" 

Dwight grimaced. "He . . . may have. Look —" He lifted his hand, then sighed and let it drop. "You're not going to take 'no' for an answer, are you." 

"That's one of the very few things I'm not good at," Jennifer said proudly. 

Dwight rubbed his neck and sighed. "Alright. Let's go then. But if I tell you to keep back or to _run_ , you have to do it, alright?" 

"Aye-aye." She clicked her heels together and saluted. Dwight gave her another bemused smirk and headed for the door, letting her trail after.

* * *

The Haven Library was a lovely building. Clearly newly renovated, it was open and airy, full of tall ceilings and full glass walls to let in natural light. It would be a wonderfully peaceful space to get lost in a good book, were it not for, you know, all the angry, screaming people. 

"Everyone, please!" Dwight held up his hands, looking pained. No one seemed to pay him much attention. "If you could all just calm down, I'll be happy to take your statements one at a time." 

There was a single beat of silence as the small mob of library patrons — and at least one page, judging by the ID badge — blinked at Dwight. Then they all started shouting at once again. 

"Are you sure this is a trouble?" Jennifer asked, leaning sideways towards Dwight without taking her eyes off the group. They ranged in age from teenager to senior citizen, and didn't seem to have much in common beyond all being in the library at noon on a Wednesday. "Because it kinda looks like a small-town politics thing." Dwight shot her a raised eyebrow and she shrugged. "I watched a lot of _Gilmore Girls_." 

"Pretty sure it's a trouble." Dwight pointed to a balding, round-shouldered man currently screaming something that sounded extremely rude in German at an older woman with dyed-dark, professionally-set hair. "I've never heard Peter say more than three words at a time before. And he normally dotes on his mother." 

"That's his _mom?_ " Jennifer's eyes widened. "I never would have spoken to my mom in that tone." 

Dwight grunted noncommittally. "If it is a trouble, there's not much we can do until we find out whose it is. Except maybe lock them all up separately so they don't — _hey!_ No scratching allowed!" He waded into the mob and pulled a willowy teen girl off what Jennifer guessed was her sketchy older boyfriend by the strap of her backpack. "Don't make me hose you down." 

The girls' boyfriend spat on him. Jennifer winced sympathetically and wondered why she'd thought she could help. 

Movement caught her eye by the circulation desk, which had been abandoned when Jennifer and Dwight had arrived. She tried to signal Dwight, but he had his hands full — quite literally — with the teenager. Right. Well. She knew how to interview a witness, anyway. Maybe she could help after all. 

"Excuse me." She went over to the desk, bright-eyed and eager mask firmly in place. She found most men responded well to the "who, little old me?" act. Or at least let their guard down. "Can I ask you something?" 

The man turned away from the returned books he'd been looking over, and Jennifer gave herself just a moment to regret all her decisions. He was a creepy looking guy, with curly, thinning hair and a face that seemed to come to a point like a blade. He looked her up and down with something that wasn't quite a leer, then stared at her unblinking. Jennifer was a pretty girl from a large urban center, though. This was hardly the first time she'd been checked out by a creeper. So she stood up straight and added some iron to her gaze as she stared him down. 

"Yes," he said, after a long enough pause that Jennifer had to remind herself what she'd asked. 

"Thanks," she said, then jerked her thumb over her shoulder at the mob. "Did you see what started the fight?" 

"Yes," he said again, and smiled. Jennifer couldn't suppress a shudder. Her ear popped, and her eyes did the rapid fire blink thing they did when she'd been working on something too long and her brain needed a hard reboot.

When she looked again, the creeper was gone. She turned back to the mob of yelling patrons and saw Dwight shooting her a helpless look. "Can I get a hand?" he asked. Jennifer blinked again. The world swam, and suddenly Dwight was leering at her harder than the creeper did. "I can't kill all these people by myself, you know." 

" _What?!_ " Jennifer shrieked, before she could stop herself. He hadn't really said that. He _wouldn't_ really say that! He was a nice man, a gentle giant! He was — someone she didn't actually know that well. She didn't know _anyone_ here that well. This might have all been some sort of elaborate trap, lure in the naive girl from the big city and — and — well, do something creepy that small towns do! Probably involving death! And maybe pagan gods!

"I'm onto you!" she shouted, and bolted for the door. She could hear Dwight let out a confused "Jennifer?" as she went. He probably didn't expect her to catch on so quick. She stormed down the library steps and into the road without looking, only to come up short when someone blocked her path. 

"You don't want to do that." 

A silver sedan blew by, the driver leaning on his horn as he swerved around them. 

"Slow the fuck down!" Jennifer shouted after them, then finally looked up at her savior. 

Duke Crocker gave her a small, rueful smile. His hair was cropped short on the sides, showing the silver at his temples. "I know," he said, sounding amused, though his lips never moved. "I look damn good for a twice-dead guy." 

"Are you real?" Jennifer asked, poking at Duke's midsection. "You're not real. Are you real? You have to tell me if you're not real. It's, like — the hallucinogenic code or something." 

"You know, people keep asking me that." Duke shook his head. His mouth still hadn't actually opened. "Does it matter if I'm real?" 

"Yes!" Jennifer's hands never touched him. Not because they went through him, or because he seemed to dodge at all. It was more like . . . she'd underestimated the distance between them, and he was just out of reach. Even when she leaned forwards, and he never seemed to move, he was still just past the edge of her fingertips. "If you're real then I'm not crazy. And I don't want to be crazy. I had enough of being crazy, thanks!" 

"You're a little bit crazy," Duke said, giving her a faint, close-lipped smile. "But it's —" 

"Why are you talking like that?" Jennifer aimed her fingers at his face instead of his stomach. She still couldn't reach. "It's really creepy!" 

Duke shrugged. "I don't know, it's part of the package or something. Look, I'm trying to tell you somethi —" 

"I'm not the one who's crazy," Jennifer said. She spun on her heel and started marching away down the street. "You're the one who's crazy. This whole town is crazy. Dwight's crazy in there, saying he wants to kill all of _those_ crazy people. If you want crazy, _that's_ what's really crazy. Not me." 

"Jennifer." Duke came around her to stand in her way again. He pulled his hands out of the pockets of his stupid, sexy, dark wool peacoat and held them up. "Breathe." 

"Don't tell me what to do!" 

"Okay, don't breathe then. Look, I'm trying to do the whole spooky, all-knowing ghost thing here and you're making it _really hard_." 

"Deal with it!" Jennifer spun to storm back the other way again, as fast as she could. Duke was faster though, those stupid long stork-legs of his giving him a serious advantage, and he ended up in front of her. This time she didn't stop. Let whatever optical illusion kept her from touching him deal with _that_. 

He started walking backwards. Which seemed like cheating, somehow. 

"You've been whammied, okay?" he said, lips finally opening in a little grimace, though his mouth _still_ didn't synch up with his voice. "That guy in the library? That was one of William's men. He put a little glob of aether in your ear and it's fucking with your head. Yours and everyone else's." 

Jennifer rolled her eyes. "How would you even know that? Oh, sorry, is that part of your 'spooky all-knowing ghost' package?" 

"It — happened before. In the other timeline." 

"You were supposed to fix the other timeline!" 

"I know!" Duke threw his hands in the air. "Time travel is really hard, okay? I can't predict everything. And you weren't supposed to open the door!" 

Jennifer stopped, aiming her fingers in his face again. "Oh no! Do not blame this on me! I don't even remember doing that! And — _and_ — it got me possessed!" 

Duke winced, hand coming up to rub his hair. "I'm really sorry about that. I know what that feels like, and it sucks." 

"Yeah! It does! And I'm not crazy!" 

". . . We just went over this. You're a little crazy. Aether? In the ear?" 

Jennifer let out a wordless bellow of frustration and pointed at the library. "Fine then, Mr. All-Knowing-From-the-Future Guy, if you're so smart and know everything already, then how do we fix it before they all kill each other?" 

"Dwight can handle them for now." Duke smiled. He had the courtesy to look slightly sheepish as he did. "You're needed elsewhere." 

"Fine then, Ziggy. Lead the way." 

"Did — is that a _Quantum Leap_ joke? Because the hologram guy was named 'Al'." 

"I like the other Duke better." 

"Yeah." Duke gestured down the street with his head and started walking off. "That's fair." 

Jennifer looked back at the library one more time, and for a moment saw what looked like a cliche horror movie mental hospital instead of the nice, happy institute of knowledge. She shuddered and hurried after him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is taking a little longer than the previous bits, but I'm still a good 4-5k ahead on it, so no worries about abandoning it! It just . . . might be a week or so between chapters. 
> 
> PLEASE BEAR WITH ME ANYWAY.

"I'm needed . . . at a random house." Jennifer looked over her shoulder at Duke, who was back to that looking-smug-with-his-hands-in-his-coat deal again. He glanced back and shrugged. 

"Yep." 

"Are you going to tell me why?" 

"What, you don't want to find out for yourself?" 

"Not really, no." 

Duke smiled, his shoulders shifting like he was laughing, though he didn't make a sound. She wondered if maybe he couldn't actually make noise the normal way. He was supposed to be a ghost, right? Which meant he didn't have, like, vocal cords. So maybe spooky mind-speak was the only way he _could_ communicate. 

"You're adopted," he said. 

"Yeah," said Jennifer. "I kinda already knew that." 

"This is the address listed on your adoption records." 

Jennifer stared at him, her mouth open. "I." She looked back at the house, then back at him. "This is. Do my birth parents live here?!" 

Duke's smile went a little sad and he shook his head. "No. I don't know who your birth parents were, but the people who live here came later. They've got a box for you, though." 

"From my birth parents." 

Duke tilted his head and pulled one hand out of his coat to wobble it back and forth. He jerked his head at the front door. "Go find out." 

"Damn right I will!" She hurried up the driveway. She'd never been able to find _anything_ on her birth parents, no matter how hard she'd tried. It was a closed adoption. As far as she knew, the records didn't even exist. How Duke had known — well, it didn't matter. It didn't matter if this was just a hallucination from that aether-goo he said Creepy Man had put in her ear. What mattered was, there might be _answers_ in that house, and she'd wanted those for as long as she'd known what wanting was. 

She paused before knocking on the door. ". . . Can other people see you?" 

Duke shook his head and shrugged. "Probably not. So far it's only been you and Dwight." 

"Dwight can see you?" 

"Not this Dwight." 

Jennifer nodded as though that made sense. It kind of made sense. It made as much sense as anything else around here ever did. "So they won't see you. The people living here." 

"Probably not. That a problem?" 

It was if they looked out the door right now and saw her standing having a conversation with empty air. "I need to — I don't want to be crazy right now. I feel really dumb asking this when you're a ghost and maybe a hallucination — I still say you should have to tell me if you are — but anyway. Can you, um." She bit her lip. 

"Be your reality check?" 

She nodded. 

"Sure." 

She gave him a wobbly smile, and knocked on the door. The man who answered looked friendly enough, with thick-rimmed glasses and a salt-and-pepper beard. She smiled, and he tilted his head curiously. 

"Can I help you?" 

"Hi." Jennifer bounced back into the tiny curtsey she tended to do when she got nervous. "I'm Jennifer Mason. We — _I_ — found this address in some adoption records? From, uh, 1981?" 

"I see!" The man brightened, smiling back. "You must be that useless little girl the former owners threw away!" 

Jennifer stiffened, her smile freezing in place. Fury bubbled in the back of her throat. She shot a glance sideways at Duke. 

"He didn't say anything weird," Duke said. Jennifer wasn't reassured. What the hell did a _ghost_ from the _future_ know about weird, anyway?

"I'm — afraid I don't know what to tell you, dear." the man was saying, his smile faded into a frown of concern. "This house was empty for years before my partner and I bought it." 

"Oh." Jennifer tried to wrench her mental train back onto a less horrified track. He didn't call her a garbage baby. People didn't call each other that in real life. "No, of course not. So . . . you don't know anything about the people who lived here before you?" 

The man shook his head. "I'm sorry, I don't. We found a few things in the basement, but like I said, the house had been empty for ages." He let out a little chuckle. "There were rumors it was haunted, you know." 

Jennifer shot another look at Duke. Not because that sounded weird or upsetting, but . . . well, what else would you do if you heard about a haunting while hanging out with a ghost? 

"Wasn't me," Duke said, smiling. "It was an empty house. I'd be surprised if it _wasn't_ rumored to be haunted." 

"I don't suppose you . . . kept any of it?" Jennifer asked. "Anything at all. You never know what might give you a lead with a mystery like this." 

"I suppose not," the man said. "You're in luck, dear, my partner never throws anything away." He glanced to her side, just to the left of where Duke was standing. Jennifer wondered what he thought she kept looking at over there. "I suppose you ought to come inside, then. Have some lemonade while you wait. I poisoned it myself!" 

Jennifer swallowed, her mouth going dry. "That's okay," she said. "I don't mind waiting out here. I don't want to impose." 

"Are you sure? It's no trouble." The man opened the door wider, showing a dark, yawning interior that shimmered faintly at the edges. "That's how we handle crazy people around here. We take them out of the gene pool. It's what we did to your parents!" 

"Why would you even —" Jennifer cut her angry outburst off when Duke started shaking his head, hands coming up in a calming motion. "That's okay," she said again. "I think it's better if I wait outside." 

"Yes," the man said. He'd backed up a step and was shooting looks at the porch around her. "You're probably right. I'll, uh. I'll be right back." 

He closed the door firmly. Jennifer heard a lock click. 

"He's not coming back, is he," she said. 

"Pretty sure he's calling the cops," said Duke. 

"So that was a bust." She turned to head back down to the street, but stopped when she heard footsteps and raised voices. The door opened again, and this time the friendly looking man was hovering behind a ferocious looking older woman holding a cardboard box. 

"Here you are, hon," she said, holding the box out and giving the man a dark look. "I heard you two chatting and went to grab this for you." 

"Thank you," Jennifer said, taking the box. It was lighter than she might have guessed, and she didn't have very high hopes for what might be inside. Still, Duke seemed to think she'd need it. "That's really nice of you, Ms. . . ?" 

"Call me Alex. I was adopted myself, you know. Anything I can do to help someone find where they've come from." 

"Alex." Jennifer bopped her little curtsy again. "It was really nice to meet you both." 

"You too," Alex said. "Everyone should get to know the true horror of their existence." 

Jennifer smiled and turned and tried very hard to walk calmly down from the porch instead of run screaming. 

"I think I'm getting worse," she said, voice low, once she was sure the house owners wouldn't hear her. 

"I don't know. You're not yelling about sluts or trying to talk anyone into killing people, yet." 

Jennifer stopped and stared at him. " _What._ " 

"Oh, and I should check: you haven't seen any horseshoe crabs with human eyes, have you?" 

"Oh god." Jennifer hugged the box to her chest. "I just got a box of trash from a random house because my imaginary friend told me to, didn't I. I really am crazy." 

"No, that part's just Haven," Duke said. "The horseshoe crabs are supposed to be an omen. Last time you were the only one who saw them." 

"That's not actually helping your case." 

Duke bobbed his head and shrugged. "Maybe. But you can either humor me — or your own psychosis, I guess — or, what? Run?" He gave her a little fond smile. "If you were going to do that, you would have done it already." 

Jennifer stared at him, still clutching her box. She hated that he knew that about her. Or rather, she hated that she didn't hate that he knew that about her. 

She kind of liked that he knew that about her. She liked that the other Duke took such care with her even when they were facing tornadoes or mysterious trouble lists. That he'd been willing to cut himself open to save her from Croatoan, even when he knew it would at best make him really sick. Maybe he'd do that for anyone, or maybe he just thought she was hot, but she didn't care. She'd been alone for a long time. Having someone care about her again felt really nice. 

"Fine," she said. She looked around for somewhere to sit while she sorted through the box. There was a park aways down the road, and she set off for it at a trot, impatient now that she'd made her choice. The things in this box might have belonged to her birth parents. They also might have belonged to a bunch of delinquents and vagrants who had busted into an abandoned house, but considering that Duke thought there was something in here she needed, she was willing to bet that at least one thing in there fell into the first category. 

She hoped none of the stuff from the second was too icky. 

She found a nice bench and sat down, setting the box down next to her. There was a troll doll right on top, an old paperback, a baseball trophy. "Do I get a hint about what I'm looking for?" 

Duke loomed over her. She wondered if he could sit down. "A book." 

"The only book in here is this trashy thing." She picked up the paperback. "'Unstake My Heart'. I've read it. It's barely worth the paper it's printed on." 

Duke gave her that little smile again. "Take a closer look." 

"At vampire romance." Duke raised his eyebrow and Jennifer sighed. "Fine. 'Unstake My Heart', by —" Her ear popped again, like it had in the library, and she shuddered and blinked. ". . . That's not what the cover looked like a minute ago." 

She looked up and saw Duke looking away, watching what looked like a large bug go flying off. He looked back at her, brows furrowed. "Can you still see me?" 

"Um. Yes?" Jennifer poked the book's cover, holding it up. "More importantly, I see this! The thing on Nathan's arm! The — the Guard thingy! On a really stupid book!" 

Duke broke into a grin. "It wasn't just the aether then." He stuck his hands in his hair. "I was really worried about that." 

"The aether?" Jennifer rubbed her ear. "That was — does this mean I'm not crazy anymore?" 

"No more than you ever are." She scowled and swiped at him with the book. He jumped back this time, even though she hadn't been able to touch him yet. "Hey, watch it with that thing! I'm not sure what else it can do!" 

"Why did a book make me not crazy?!" 

"No idea," Duke confessed. "In my timeline, that thing saved you from a rougarou made out of aether. And it led you to the door that we got rid of William through." 

"So that means we can get rid of him?" 

Duke shook his head. "Trying that is what let Mara and Croatoan out." He closed his eyes, his expression drawn and tight. "And. It's how you died." 

Jennifer dropped the book on the ground and pulled her feet up on the bench. "Then why'd you let me go find it?!" 

Duke looked at her sadly. "Because it's yours. It's your . . . guide. Or talisman maybe. It answered questions for you that no one else could. About who you are. Where you're from." 

". . . It's a vampire romance novel." 

"It's not a — Look, I'm pretty sure Howard left it for you." 

"Howard. Like, barn-guy Howard." 

"Yeah. He's the one who arranged your adoption." 

"The barn guy arranged my adoption? Am I from the barn?! Is that why I could hear it? Wait, am I not —" She stopped when Duke held up a hand. He pointed at the book. 

"Read it. Find out. Just — maybe don't go to the lighthouse." 

"Really? But it looks so cute. . . ." Duke gave her a firm look, instead of smiling like she'd hoped. "Yeah, yeah. Okay." She picked the book up again and carefully opened it up. "Let's see what Agent Howard has to tell me." 

She flipped past the end paper, not finding anything else of note until she reached the cover page. Where glowing text appeared beneath the title like a spooky magic riddle. "'In times of great evil,'" she read, "'the Child of Ruin must find the heart of Haven and summon the door.' Okay. So the door's in the lighthouse. Which means. . . ."

She frowned, turning the page, but didn't find anything further. She looked up at Duke, who was still standing there, watching her, a serious look on his face. "Is that me? Am I the Child of Ruin?" 

"You seemed to think so, yeah." 

Jennifer looked back at the book. ". . . Rude." She turned it over in her hands. "What does that even mean? Is it because I let the bad guys in?" 

"I don't know. You died before we could find out." 

Jennifer shuddered. She was starting to see why the Duke from this timeline was always so angry and twitchy. You know, besides having his trouble turned inside out or whatever. It wasn't a nice feeling, knowing that somewhere out there, in a giant tangle of mixed up timelines, you were just — dead. "So how do I find out?" 

Duke shook his head. "I don't know that, either." 

"You just knew there was a book. And that I'm the Child of Ruin." 

Duke nodded once. 

"Which — which means I'm not from this world, doesn't it. Like Audrey and William and — and that _thing_ that was in my head. I'm — not even _human_." 

"No. Hey, don't do that." Duke crouched, putting their faces on the same level. "You're still who you were yesterday. You're still the bright, funny, amazing woman who came to find me in a hospital in Boston." He swallowed. "The woman I fell in love with." 

Jennifer felt her lips twitch into a smile, even as her eyes started to well up. "You love me?" 

"I do, yeah. And if that other Duke has any brains at all, so does he." 

Jennifer pressed her hand to her mouth, her book to her chest. No one had loved her in such a long time. No one had _ever_ looked at her the way Duke was looking at her now. "'Cause —" She sniffed and looked down into her lap, unable to keep looking him in the eye. "'Cause I kind of thought you were in love with Audrey. Or — maybe Nathan. Or maybe both of them?" 

"That's . . . complicated." She glanced back up in time to see him look away, scowling. "Nathan and Audrey are very important to me. They just never seemed to figure out that I was important to _them_ until it was too late." 

"Hey." Jennifer reached out to him, letting her hand hover in the air in the space where it seemed his chest should be. His heart. "I think you fixed that part. Audrey almost went evil trying to save you." 

Duke was looking at her hand, his own hovering a little ways away, like he was afraid to try to touch her. He snapped his gaze up to hers with a frown when she said that though. "Save me from what?" 

"Your trouble." 

Duke shook his head, frowning. "My trouble shouldn't have gone wrong. I got rid of Wade." 

"I . . . don't know what that has to do with it?" Jennifer pulled her hand back again. "But your trouble's definitely gone, um. Wrong. William broke it." 

Duke was a ghost. He already didn't have any color to him. But Jennifer could swear he still somehow got _paler_. "William did _what._ " 

Jennifer put her book back in the box and picked the whole thing up. "Come on," she said. "It's my turn to show _you_ something, now."


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why do I keep writing stories that require multiple versions of one character in the same scene?

"Wow." Duke looked through the window into the other Duke's hospital room. His own hospital room? Jennifer could see why Dwight named one of them 'Crocker'. "I look like shit." 

Crocker was sitting up on his bed, playing with some kind of foam ball, rolling it between his hands and passing it from palm to palm, a look of intense concentration on his face. He was still pale, his arms covered in white bandages, a faint, feverish flush in his cheeks, but his hair was washed and combed, and he'd lost most of the hollowed-out look around the eyes. 

"Actually, you look a lot better than you did." Jennifer looked up at Duke and shrugged. "I don't know everything that happened, but when his — your — _his_ body encounters a trouble, it kind of." She tilted her head, looking at Crocker. "Rejects it." 

Duke raised an eyebrow at her. "Rejects it." 

"Violently. There's, like. Bodily fluids involved." 

Duke's brows came together, his mouth falling open. He looked back into the hospital room. "I can't even tell if that's better or worse than what happened to me." 

"What did happen to you?" 

"All the troubles my family ended activated at once. Inside me." 

"That's. _Bad_."

"Yeah. Then I exploded." 

"Is that before or after I died?" 

"Started right before. It was a rough few months." 

"Jennifer?" Jennifer turned to look and saw Duke's old lady friend, Gloria, standing in the middle of the hallway. "You doing alright there, peanut?" 

Oh good. A diminutive nickname. Jennifer just _loved_ those. "I'm fine." 

"Who were you talking to?" 

Jennifer flicked her gaze to Duke, wondering how much she should tell people. Duke was looking at Gloria with a soft, sad smile. "Tell her." 

Jennifer turned back to Gloria. "The ghost of Duke's future." 

Gloria studied her for a long moment. Jennifer wondered if she was about to recommend a padded room. She'd gotten a lot of that look over the last six months in Boston. Then Gloria nodded and shrugged. "Tell him I said 'hi'." 

"God, I love her," Duke said. "If I was fifty years older. . . ."

Jennifer had to laugh. "You like 'em short, huh." 

"I don't want to know," Gloria said, heading for the door to the hospital room, on a course that should have taken her right through Duke. But when she got to where he'd been standing, he was just out of her way again. "You want to come in, say hi?" 

"Um." Jennifer reached back, scratching at the bandages on her lower back. Where Duke — _Crocker_ , it was so much easier to think of one of them that way — had burned her to get Croatoan out of her head. "I don't —" 

"Go," Duke said. "You can fill him in on the Child of Ruin stuff." 

"Are you coming with me?" 

"Yeah." Duke smiled. "I can do that." 

Gloria flicked her eyes from Jennifer to somewhere at least in the vicinity of Duke and back again. "Well?" 

"We're coming." Jennifer bounced on her toes, full of nervous energy. The last time she'd spent any real time with Crocker, he was either writhing or passed out. Because of what _her hands_ did. And then _his_ hands had burned the shit out of her, landing him in that hospital bed. But when she entered his room, Crocker looked up and smiled. 

It was the same smile Duke gave her, maybe a little brighter, a little smaller. Less sad, but with less conviction. "Jennifer," he said. "Hey." He fumbled the ball in his hands and the smile vanished as he bit out several curses. The ball rolled across the room and Crocker scooted towards the edge of the bed. Gloria stopped him with a hand on his chest. 

"Don't even think about it, buster. You're on bed rest until that temp stabilizes again." 

"You want me to stabilize, stop sending in doctors with troubles." 

"Half of them don't even know they've _got_ one until you're puking." 

"Bodily fluids," Duke muttered. 

"Jennifer." Gloria lifted her chin towards the ball. "You mind? My hips aren't big on bending over if they don't have to." 

"Um," Jennifer said. "Okay." She grabbed the ball. "What's with this, anyway?" 

"P.T." Gloria patted Crocker's arm. Or at least _at_ Crocker's arm. It was almost like Crocker was another ghost that you couldn't quite touch. Jennifer assumed Gloria was just being careful about his bandages. "Our boy here did a number on his hand saving the day the way he did." 

"Sounds about right," Duke said. He'd made his way into the corner of the room, his hands buried in the pockets of that dark coat again. "We never could do anything by halves." 

Jennifer flicked him a look, then held the ball out for Crocker to take. Crocker reached over absently, and they both seemed to realize what they were doing at the same moment. 

When his fingertips brushed against her palm. 

They both froze, staring at each other with wide eyes. Then Crocker snatched his hand back and swallowed, curling up as if in anticipation. 

But nothing happened. 

"What was that?" Gloria and Duke asked simultaneously. Jennifer wasn't sure which way to look. 

"Um," she said. She held out a wobbling hand. "Should — should we try it again?" 

Crocker swallowed again. He looked like he'd really rather not, but he reached out anyway, braced as though to snatch his hand away the moment his body reacted. 

Nothing happened. He clasped Jennifer's hand, giving it a squeeze, and still nothing. 

"Holy shit." Crocker let out a shaky laugh. "That's." He slid his free hand to his hair and flinched, giving it a little glare as he lowered it again, then looked back at Jennifer. "I have never been so happy to hold someone's hand." 

Gloria huffed. "Think I'm a little insulted. You've been holding mine plenty." 

Duke flicked her a little smile, then looked at Jennifer. "I don't get it. What's happening?" 

"I should be setting his trouble off," Jennifer told him. "Making him sick. I guess — I'm not troubled anymore." 

"Must have burned it out of you along with Croatoan," Crocker said. "Though. . . ." He let the word trail off and looked into the corner. "Who are you talking to?" 

"She's got a ghost buddy," Gloria said. 

"Oh." Crocker clearly had no idea what to make of that. "Congratulations?" 

Jennifer gave his hand a squeeze, then let go. "Thanks. It's, um. The other you." 

Crocker scowled. "Oh. _Great_." 

Duke rolled his eyes. "Yeah, buddy. Love you too."

Gloria sucked on her teeth thoughtfully and then tipped her head towards the door. "You all've got some things to catch up on. How about I give you some privacy for a bit." When Crocker gave her a betrayed look, she chucked him gently on the chin. "This time travel nonsense gives me a headache, and my stash of scotch is with the intern back in the morgue." 

"Fine," Crocker said. "But you're bringing me some when you come back." 

"Fair enough." Gloria gave Jennifer and the air to her left a nod. "See you, peanut. Ghost-kitten." And she left. 

"So," Jennifer said, looking between the two Dukes. "I'm. . . . Not troubled anymore." 

"I'm not totally sold on that," Crocker said, flicking his gaze between her and the empty air next to her. Jennifer tilted her head the other way, where Duke was actually standing. "How long have you been able to see ghosts?" 

Jennifer frowned. "Hang on, that's a good point!" She pointed at Duke. "How come I can see you and he can't?" 

"I'm guessing he doesn't want to," Duke said, at about the same time as Crocker offered "Not that I'm super anxious to see him again." Duke did that silent huffing thing again that he did instead of laughing. 

"Can't you _try_ to see him?" Jennifer asked Crocker. "He's got information, and it'll be way easier if you can just talk to him instead of me playing go-between." 

"Try to see _myself_ as a ghost." Crocker shook his head. "No thanks." 

"Fair," Duke said. When Jennifer glared at him, he shrugged. "I wouldn't want to, either." 

"You are both so —" Jennifer growled and hopped in frustration, then closed her eyes and took a breath. "Ugh. Okay. So. Duke." She pointed to Duke. "William broke this Duke's trouble, and now he gets, like, violently ill when he touches troubled people. And his blood gets all hot and — exorcises troubles if he bleeds on them." 

Crocker nodded at the summation. Duke looked faintly disgusted. 

"Duke." She pointed to Crocker. "I'm apparently some otherworldly person called the 'Child of Ruin' and I have a magic book that can get rid of crazy-making aether balls." 

Crocker blinked. "What." 

"That — may not be the most accurate —" Duke started. Jennifer stopped him by throwing her hands in the air. 

"I can get rid of the crazy-making aether balls!" She yanked the book out of her pocket and waved it in the air. "Why didn't I think of this before? We have to get to the library!" 

"What's at the library?" Crocker asked. 

"I told you, Jennifer," said Duke. "Dwight can handle those people." 

"Yeah, because I had to go get the book, but I have the book now and the book _helps_ and that was a lot of crazy people at the library!" 

". . . There's a crazy people trouble?" Crocker asked. 

"No. Well. Sort of. One of William's men is infecting people with little balls of goo that make them hallucinate. It's not fun." 

"Sinister," Crocker said. 

"I mean, I'd go with 'creepy', but sure. That works too." 

"No. That's the guy's name." 

"You know their names?" Duke asked. 

"You met him when William got you?" Jennifer asked, rather than repeating the question directly. 

"Yeah. And Heavy — got melted." 

"Heavy got _melted?_ " Duke looked appalled.

"Aether-burning blood," Jennifer said. "Keep up. Wait!" She flapped her hand in the air. "That's it! Your blood can melt the troubles! My book can banish aether! Between the two of us, _we can save Haven!_ " 

"Is that one of those supernatural romance novels?" Crocker asked with a frown. 

"No. Well. Yes. But that's not important." 

"Okay. Hang on." Duke raised his hand. "This plan seems to require _bleeding_ me. Well, him." 

"Um," Jennifer said. "Maybe a little." 

"Maybe a little what?" Crocker asked. 

"Blood. From you." 

"Yeah, I'm not into that part." Crocker lifted his bandaged arms. "That part _sucks_ for me." 

"Bleeding was what let _out_ troubles," Duke said. "Bleeding is not a plan." 

Jennifer wilted a little. They had a point. She was actually kind of horrified with herself for not realizing that on her own.

"Did he agree with me?" Crocker asked. "He agreed with me, didn't he." 

"Of course he did, Duke, you're the same person." Jennifer sighed. "Okay. No bleeding. Still! Book! Magic book!" She waved it in the air again. "I'm going to the library. To at least _check_ on Dwight. I'll . . . whack people upside the head and make the goo-balls fall out, and then come back and we can plan some more." 

"We may need to revisit the idea that you're crazy," Crocker murmured. Duke was grinning. 

"Alright," he said. "We'll go check on things at the library." 

"No." Jennifer pointed at him. "You're invisible to basically everyone but me, right? You're going on a scouting mission. Go find out where William is, so we can — I don't know, sit on him or something." 

"Kill him," Crocker said. "I would very much like to kill him." 

"Can't," said Duke. "Killing him kills Audrey." 

"What?!" Jennifer stared at him. 

"What what?" Crocker asked. 

"Audrey and William are connected. Through Mara." Duke waved one hand through the air, as though demonstrating the connection. "Whatever you do to one happens to the other." 

Jennifer scowled. "How is that fair?!" 

"Jennifer." Crocker grabbed for her arm. " _What is he saying?_ " 

Jennifer took a deep breath. "William and Audrey are connected and if we hurt one of them we hurt the other." 

"Ah." Crocker scowled and rubbed his face. "Right. Of course they are. Okay, so we'll . . . deal with him some other way." 

"After we find him." Jennifer looked at Duke. "After _you_ find him. And I go save the people at the library." 

"And I continue to lie here useless," Crocker said. He gave them a double thumbs up. Or more of a thumbs-up-and-a-half. His right thumb didn't seem to want to point all the way up. He glared at it and dropped his hands. "Gloria better get back here soon with that scotch."


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh lord how has it been more than a month? Anyway. I've slowed way down on writing this due to . . . I don't know, brain weasels, probably, BUT IT IS NOT ABANDONED. I just need to get my writing brain back in gear. . . .

Jennifer's legs were aching by the time she made it back downtown. Haven wasn't a large city or anything, certainly nothing compared to Boston, but Boston at least had _trains_ that could get you from place to place when you didn't want to drive. Jennifer wasn't sure Haven even had a bus system. She stopped at Haven Joe's coffee shop to sit for a moment and stretch out her calves, and tried not to think about how much damage a bunch of crazy library patrons could be doing to Dwight in the meantime. 

She shouldn't have let Duke talk her into leaving him behind. Not that she had any idea what she would have done about the crazy library patrons without the book he'd led her to. Or while she was crazy herself. 

Speaking of crazy. That was definitely an old lady glaring daggers at her. Jennifer quickly checked to make sure her shirt wasn't riding up funny and her fly wasn't undone. When she looked up again, the lady was storming over. 

"Don't you give me that look," she said. Jennifer looked around, eyes wide. 

"What look?" 

"How dare you!" The lady slapped Jennifer across the face. 

"Ack!" Jennifer whipped her book out and smacked her back. A black ball, about the size of a marble, popped out of the lady's ear and went winging away like a big bug. "Huh. Goo balls." 

"What?" The lady backed up, staring from her hand to Jennifer, appalled. "My lord, dear, I'm so sorry! I don't know what got into me!" 

"It's fine!" Jennifer told her. "Must be some sort of." She came to a full stop, not knowing how to explain 'crazy-making goo-balls' in old-lady-friendly terms. 

"Gas leak," the woman finished for her. "My word. I have to go check on Norman!" 

"Yep!" Jennifer waved the woman off, then looked at her book. "Right, well. At least I know that works, now." She bit back a groan as she got to her feet again. 

She had to get to the library. And — maybe check on the other patrons in the coffee shop, too. Apparently Sinister was getting around. 

She managed to pop three more goo-balls out of people's ears by the time she got to the library. Dwight's truck was still parked out front, which she really hoped was a good sign instead of a bad one. How long had she been gone? Half an hour, maybe? Forty-five minutes? Long enough to get him into deep trouble, for sure. 

Definitely long enough for Sinister to have infected Dwight, too. 

She clutched her book tight in her hand, holding it poised above her head, ready to strike if anyone so much as looked at her funny. The front room of the library, where all the angry people had been, was deserted. 

"Not good," she muttered. "Not good not good not —" A crash sounded from the reference section, and Jennifer froze, snapping her mouth shut. She crept forward, book held high. 

At least if she whacked the wrong person, she wasn't likely to injure them. Right? 

The man who had been cursing at his mother in German came flying from behind the stacks, and landed in a roll that would do a stunt man proud. He scrambled to his feet, shouting something that sounded deeply aggressive, and ran off before Jennifer could book him. She looked back the way he'd come from, wondering if his mom had gotten fed up and hulked out, only to see Dwight storming her way, trailing taser wires from his chest. 

"Dwight!" Jennifer waved. "I'm here to rescue you!"

Dwight kept barreling at her, and it occurred to Jennifer to wonder if she might need rescuing from Dwight. 

"Sayyyyy," she said, backing up as quickly as possible. "You didn't happen to see a creepy glasses guy, did you? Who stuck a wad of goo in your ear?"

"Why did you come here?!" Dwight demanded, looming over her. His normally kind, friendly face was filled with unhinged fury. 

"So that's a yes," Jennifer said, and swung her book. Dwight caught her wrist in a crushing grip and she let out a distressed squawk. 

"Answer me!"

"I told you! To save you!"

"Not _here,_ Haven! Are you working with William?!"

"No! I came to help Duke, remember? I could hear the barn!"

Dwight dragged her close by the arm as she futilely tried to get enough leverage to touch him with the book. "And how did you do that? Are you part of the barn? _Who do you work for?!_ "

"No one! It was my trouble!" Jennifer stopped struggling. Dwight's grip wasn't tight enough to really hurt, but she was getting pins and needles in her fingers, and she was all too aware of how easy it would be for someone his size to hurt her. "Look. I don't — know who I am, okay? I thought I did, but then I found this book —"

"Book?" Dwight seemed to just then register what she was holding, and for a moment she thought she saw some lucidity in his expression, but it was replaced almost immediately by more suspicion. "I won't let you hurt anyone else," he said, and grabbed the book with his other hand. Jennifer held on as best she could, and just before he wrenched it free of her grip, she saw the black ball leave his ear. 

Dwight blinked at her and frowned. "Jennifer?"

"Yep." She bit her lip and nodded to his hand on her wrist. "Can I have that back now?"

Dwight let her go and backed off, looking horrified. "I didn't hurt you, did I?"

"No." Jennifer shook her hand out. "You were a very gentle crazy giant. Can't speak for the German guy though."

"Peter. Crap." Dwight rubbed his head. "I guess Audrey solved this trouble just in time, huh."

"Um," Jennifer said. "So. Actually. I did. Sort of. I'm not sure Audrey even knows it's happening." She pointed to her book, which he still held. "I'm going to need that back."

Dwight handed it to her, and Jennifer felt an odd rush of relief to have it back. Not a supernatural rush, she didn't think. She'd just gotten weirdly attached to it already. "You want to tell me what's going on?"

Another crash sounded from deeper in the library. Then an echoing one from the circulation desk. "Sure," Jennifer said. "On the move. We have to cure this one on a one-on-one basis."

"Right," Dwight said, already heading for the first noise. ". . . How?" 

"Mostly by hitting them with my book." Jennifer gave a little hop and skip to keep up with him and held the book aloft again. "I know, I know, it doesn't make any sense." 

Dwight shrugged. "Don't really care so long as it works." 

"That is impressively pragmatic," Jennifer said, then startled when she saw movement in between a set of rotating displays. "Crazy person! Two o'clock!" 

She heard a muttered "we maybe don't need to call them that" behind her as she ran in to take the person down. 

Between the two of them, she and Dwight managed to get most of the affected patrons cured in a matter of maybe half an hour. Dwight had to grab a few in a bear hug to get them to hold still long enough for Jennifer to whack them, but in his right mind he was more than a match for pretty much anyone in Haven. It was just a matter of _finding_ them. Jennifer felt like they were finding their groove, really becoming a great team, when Dwight suddenly went stock still, staring at something in the distance that Jennifer wasn't tall enough to see. 

"You, uh. You're sure that book thing is a cure?" he asked. 

"It's worked so far," Jennifer said, nodding. She hopped up on her toes, then started jumping to try to see what he was looking at. "Why?" 

"Because I'm pretty sure I'm still hallucinating." He rubbed his eyes, then looked around and grabbed one of the rolling stool things, sliding it into place in front of her. "Tell me you're not seeing what I'm seeing." 

She hopped up on the stool and looked. "Duke!" 

"Okay, you are seeing what I'm seeing." 

Jennifer waved. Duke nodded back, then appeared at the end of the stacks, making Dwight stiffen. 

"I thought he was dead," Dwight hissed. 

"I am," Duke said, tilting his head and giving Dwight a little smirk. "Again." 

"You can still see him!" Jennifer said, clutching her book to her chest. "Okay, that's — we really have to figure out the rules on the whole seeing ghosts thing." 

"It's just you and Dwight so far," Duke said. 

"What do you mean I can _still_ see him?" Dwight asked. "And why's he talking like that?" 

"That's how ghosts talk, I guess." Jennifer shrugged. "He said you could see him in the old timeline?" 

Dwight nodded slowly. ". . . Right. Don't care why it works so long as it does." 

Jennifer huffed. "Okay, but _I_ do." 

"We don't have time for the logistics of this," Duke said. "Or the physics or whatever. I came to find you because we have a problem." 

"Is it the black stuff?" Dwight asked. "The . . . aether? Because we're kind of handling that." 

Duke's shoulders heaved up and down in what looked like a sigh. "Yes. But the issue's not so much the what but the _who_." 

Dwight and Jennifer exchanged a look. Jennifer gestured for Duke to continue. 

"Vince has been affected." Duke turned and started towards the library entrance. "And he has Duke." 

"Really?" Dwight said, watching him go. "He's just going to say something foreboding and then walk away?" 

"I mean." Jennifer nodded. "Ghost." 

"Are you two coming, or what?" Duke called. 

Dwight rolled his eyes, and they followed. He had his phone out by the time they hit the street. "Nathan," he said, apparently talking to a voicemail. "Change of plans. The trouble cure is going to have to wait a bit. William's back, and his stooge is infecting people with aether all over town." 

"And Duke's been kidnapped!" Jennifer added, shouting towards his phone. 

"And Duke's been kidnapped," Dwight repeated. "Apparently by an aether-infected Vince. According to. . . ." He trailed off and stared at Duke with a faint shake of his head. "Um, well. Duke." 

"His ghost from the future!" 

"Are we all caught up again?" Duke called back without turning. "Because I'd really like us to get to my other self before he bleeds out." 

Jennifer felt her eyes go wide. "Why would he _bleed out?_ " 

"Vince thinks his blood can cure the troubles," Dwight said. Jennifer blinked up at him, and saw Duke look back over his shoulder out of the corner of her eye. "Right?" Dwight looked between them. "I mean, that's what I thought, after the whole . . . exorcism thing." 

"It's a theory," Jennifer allowed. She wasn't sure if she should say it was one that she'd already suggested to Crocker herself. Or that he'd dismissed it outright, and with good reason. "Not a very nice one, for Duke." 

"The universe isn't very nice to me in general," Duke noted, staring straight ahead again as he marched down the street. Jennifer wondered if he was traveling that way for them specifically, or if ghosts still had to walk everywhere. Her legs were aching again. She was never going anywhere without her car ever again. 

"But that's why you came back, isn't it?" Jennifer asked. "To make it nicer?" 

"And look how well that worked." Duke looked back at them over his shoulder again, this time giving Jennifer a sad little smile. "Hospitalized with a furnace in my chest and a wonky hand." 

"If this Duke dies," Dwight said. "Do you think he'll go back, too? Is some other version of me going to find him burned and bleeding out by the docks or something?" 

"I have no fucking idea," Duke said. 

Dwight's phone rang and he snatched it up. "Go for Dwight. . . . Yeah. Apparently Vince thinks he can end the troubles." He pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose. "Yeah, I _know_ that, Nathan, but we could really use your help out here. Can't Dr. Cross work on her own for a while? . . . _Thank_ you. We'll meet you two —" He scowled and lowered his phone a little. "Hey, Duke. Where are we going?" 

"Large animal vet, north of town." 

Dwight stopped in his tracks and rolled his eyes, then started back towards the library. "You couldn't have just said that in the first place? I'm getting my truck." 

Jennifer let out a little whoop and hurried after him.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Getting into the home stretch on the draft of this sucker! It might even get done this year!

Nathan and Audrey met them a little ways down the road from the vet's office, around a bend where they wouldn't be seen by anyone standing guard inside. Jennifer thought the look of steel on Audrey's face was maybe more Mara than she would have liked, but she didn't really know Audrey at all. Maybe that level of royally pissed off was a trait they both shared. 

"You said Vince has Duke?" Audrey asked, looking over their little group.

"Where's the other one?" Nathan asked, frowning faintly. 

"Catching up," said Dwight. "Apparently ghosts don't ride in cars."

"Makes sense," Jennifer said. "It's not like he can touch anything."

"We can't wait on him," Nathan decided. "We have to go in there _now_. Charlotte's not sure how much more our Duke's system can take."

Jennifer wondered sometimes who was really in charge of things around here, Nathan or Dwight. 

Dwight nodded firmly. "Agreed. But we need to do this smart. Jennifer's the one who can . . . de-aether any of William's victims, so we need to protect her at all costs." Jennifer wrinkled her nose, not loving the implication that she couldn't take care of herself. Who had just saved whom at the library? Nathan and Audrey both agreed though; Audrey nodded at Jennifer, jerking her chin at the book. 

"Is that what I think it is?"

"If you think it's a terrible paranormal romance imbued with unearthly power, then yes! Yes it is."

Audrey held her hand out, her head tilted. "May I?"

Jennifer hesitated. Audrey still reminded her _so much_ of Mara. . . .

"Hey." Audrey smiled. "Relax. Mara's still here, but she's on our side now."

"Yeah, I kinda don't know if I can trust that."

Audrey raised her hands and shrugged. "Fair enough. Just thought maybe I could shed some light on the whole 'unearthly power' thing. Mara is pretty literally unearthly, after all."

"Um." Jennifer looked at the book. "I don't—"

"Ladies," Dwight said. "Rescue mission first. Unearthly mysteries later."

"So pragmatic!" Jennifer whispered, biting her lip. 

Dammit, why did she have to go and form multiple crushes around here? Duke _and_ Dwight. At least Nathan and Audrey weren't trying to turn her brain to mush. 

. . . She didn't have a thing for guys with D names, did she? 

"William knows Duke's blood can take out his aetherlings," Audrey said, her hand resting on the butt of her gun. "So we probably don't need to worry about him."

Jennifer shook herself out of her musings. No one seemed to have noticed her distraction. Or — her, really. At all. She tried not to resent it. It wasn't their fault she'd been thrown into the middle of all this, after all. 

"But Vince is the leader of the Guard," Dwight was saying. "He's lost some favor with them since the meteor storm, but there are those who are still loyal. He could have a small army in there with him."

"I'll take point," Nathan said, starting down the road. Audrey fell into formation with him without another word, and Jennifer remembered the rumor she'd heard about them sharing a brain now. She wondered just how true that was. 

And how many people Audrey could _fit_ in her brain before she ran out of space for Audrey. 

Dwight pressed his hand to Jennifer's lower back for a moment, urging her to follow. She hissed when he hit the bandage covering her burn, and he pulled his hand back with a contrite look. "I'll cover you from behind," he said. "Just be ready to whack everyone with that book."

Jennifer nodded, biting her lip. She was going into battle. Armed with a paperback. 

Her life had turned very, _very_ weird. 

The vet's office was a long, low building, like a converted stable. The sign above the door had a horse on it, and there was a small fenced-in pasture behind it. There were a handful of cars in the parking lot, mostly trucks and SUVs, which didn't lend much credence to Dwight's 'small army' theory, though it did give their strike team some cover. Jennifer wished she'd known she would be on a strike team today; she would have dressed appropriately. At the very least worn more comfortable shoes.

There was a sound like a firework as Nathan crossed between two SUVs, a high powered _crack_. It was so much louder than on TV; Jennifer would never have guessed it was a gunshot if Dwight hadn't staggered back and collapsed behind her. 

"Goddamn it, Dwight!" a woman shouted. "Just let me kill him already!"

"Um, _no?_ " Jennifer shouted back. "No killing! How is that a hard concept?!" 

"Jordan." Nathan kept walking towards her, waving off Audrey's grab for his arm. "Put down the gun." 

"Don't tell me what to do, Wuornos," Jordan hissed. "I don't know who told you what's going on here, but I'm not going to let you stop it. Not this time." 

"We have to," Audrey said. She stepped up beside Nathan, her hands out, despite the _rifle_ Jordan was still pointing at them. Of course, anything fired out of that gun would end up hitting Dwight instead. That probably made the whole bravery in the face of mortal danger thing a little easier.

"Jordan, I know you've been hurt," Audrey continued, approaching slowly, like Jordan was a wild animal. Jordan lifted the gun higher, but didn't fire. Jennifer glanced down at Dwight, who was slowly sitting up, pressing his hand to his vest. 

"Fuck this," Jordan said. Jennifer looked back over just in time to see her toss the rifle to the side. Jennifer flinched, but it didn't go off. "I'll kill him with my bare hands." 

Jordan charged at Nathan. Audrey leaped in to intercept. Jennifer bit her lip, leaning forwards to watch, and jumped when Dwight's hand landed on her arm. 

"While she's distracted," he said, grimacing. He nodded to the book still clutched in Jennifer's hands. 

"Are we sure she's goo-ed?" Jennifer asked. "I remember her from when I first got here. She was threatening Nathan then, too, and that was before William and his little goo-balls!" 

Dwight snorted softly. "It's worth a shot."

"Right." Jennifer nodded. "Pragmatism." She hung onto the book with both hands, squared her jaw, and leaped. 

"Who the fuck are you?!" Jordan asked, twisting just in time to dodge Jennifer's swipe with the book. "Are you trying to fight me with a _book_?" 

"Yup!" Jennifer struck again, this time at Jordan's arm. She usually went for the head, figuring it was closer to the goo — and weirdly more satisfying — but any bare skin seemed to work. And though Jordan wore gloves, she was showing a _lot_ of arm skin. 

"Don't!" Jordan jerked her arm away. "You idiot, don't touch me!" 

Nathan grabbed onto one of her arms. Audrey took the other. Jordan jerked furiously between them. "She's right," Nathan said. "Just with the book. Her skin causes pain." 

" _You're_ touching her!" 

"I can't feel anything!" 

" _How does anyone keep track of all this?!_ " Jennifer shouted, and whapped Jordan in the forehead. 

Nothing happened. 

Well, Jordan glared daggers at her, promising a long, slow death. But there was no sudden change of heart or goo-ball shooting out of her ear. 

"Dammit. She's obsessed with ending the troubles," Dwight said. "She doesn't need aether for that." 

Nathan swallowed, looking guilty. Jordan broke his grip and drove her elbow into his nose. Nathan's head rocked back by the sheer force of it, but it didn't stop him from grabbing at her again. Jennifer stumbled back out of reach anyway, holding the book protectively to her chest. 

"She's delaying us," she realized. "While we're out here, they're in there bleeding Duke!" 

"It'll _save_ us!" Jordan cried. Nathan had her in an arm-lock now, though blood was pouring from his nose. "But what do you care? You've already been cured!" 

"I was _burned_ ," Jennifer said. She jammed her book into her pocket and yanked her shirt up, showing Jordan the bandages on her back. "And Duke nearly _died!_ How's he supposed to save a whole town like that?" 

"I don't care." Jordan snarled, wrenching one more time against Nathan and Audrey's grip, then sagged. The anger in her tone was laced with despair. "I can't keep going like this." 

"We'll find a cure," Audrey said, voice gentle. She had one hand locked onto Jordan's wrist, apparently firmly enough that Jordan saw Nathan as an easier target for escape. She cupped Jordan's face with the other. "We will. One that doesn't kill _anyone_. You just need to be patient a little longer." 

Jordan froze, squeezing her eyes shut like Audrey's touch hurt. "Fuck you, Parker." 

Dwight staggered from behind the SUV, his hand pressed to his ribs. Taking a hit from a rifle at short distance had to hurt even with the vest. "We need to move. Jordan can't be the only one guarding this place, and that shot made a lot of noise." 

"You were one of us," Jordan said, turning her glare on him. 

Dwight shook his head at her. "And look where that got me." 

Jennifer hesitated, looking from Jordan to the front doors of the vet's office. 

"Go," Nathan said. "We'll catch up." 

Jennifer nodded, backing up a few steps before finally turning. Dwight caught her arm. "Not that way," he said softly. "They'll be watching the front door." He nodded around the side of the building, and started leading the way. Jennifer threw one last look at Jordan, then quickly followed, feeling Jordan's murderous stare on her back the whole way around the building. 

"This place is huge," she hissed in a whisper when she'd caught up to Dwight. "How are we going to find Duke in there?" 

"Systematically," Dwight said. "We'll sweep it room by room. Quiet as we can. We come across a Guardsman, we take them down. Make them talk." 

"Okay." Jennifer nodded, pressing her back up against the wall of the building like she saw people do on television. "I don't know how to do any of that. I'm not a cop!" 

"Technically neither am I," Dwight said. "Never went to the Academy. I learned this in the army." 

" _I'm not a soldier either!_ " Jennifer hissed. She shut her eyes and pressed her book to her forehead, taking a deep breath to try to settle her nerves. "If Duke were here, he could scout ahead invisibly." She lowered the book and looked at Dwight. "Then he could tell us exactly where they have Crocker." 

Dwight smiled faintly. "You named them the same way I did." 

"Well . . . it works," Jennifer said. 

Dwight nodded. "We can't wait on Duke, though. Who knows how long it'll take him to get all the way out here without a car. Or if he ran into trouble somehow along the way." 

"He's a ghost. What kind of trouble could he get into?" 

"I have no idea. But he's Duke, so I'm sure there's _something._ " 

"I wish I knew where he was." Jennifer looked back towards the parking lot, screwing the book up into a loose tube in her hands. She could still hear Jordan and Nathan and Audrey, all arguing in hushed tones. ". . . Do you think his whole 'talking without moving his lips' thing is actually telepathy? Maybe if we try to talk to him the same way, he'll hear us." 

She glanced back and saw Dwight looking at her curiously. 

"It's worth a shot," he said. She couldn't quite read that particular tilt of his head, but she swallowed and nodded anyway. She shut her eyes again, hands so tight on her book she thought she might end up tearing the pages. She realized what she was doing a moment later and jammed it into her back pocket instead. What if she _broke_ her only weapon? She could feel the top edge of it, still warm from her hands, resting against her skin above her waistband, and pictured it slowly warping from nervous sweat. She yanked her shirt down to serve as a buffer and bit her lip. 

_Duke,_ she thought with all her might. _Duke, can you hear me?_

There was something there. Voices on the wind. Not just Jordan and Nathan and Audrey, but others. Sharp, angry voices. She listened hard, trying to tune out everything but them. 

_"I still say you should have gagged him."_

_"I am going to kill every single one of you!"_

Jennifer's eyes flashed open. Duke! That was Duke! 

There was a hard thunk, the sound of flesh meeting flesh, then a wet, choking sound. 

_"And that's why we can't gag him, you fool. He's no good to us if he chokes on his own trouble."_

Scratch that, that was _Crocker_. She'd somehow connected to the wrong Duke. 

With her trouble. 

She turned wide eyes at Dwight. "It won't work. The blood, it's not a cure." 

Dwight's jaw went tight in what she thought might be disappointment, but he nodded anyway. 

"We need to tell Jordan," Jennifer said, heading back the way she'd come. "Duke's alright so far. Or — alive anyway. If Jordan knows he can't fix her, maybe she'll help us." 

Dwight caught her by the arm. "Crocker might be alive now, but he may not stay that way for long." He looked back towards the parking lot with a sigh. "We don't have time to convince Jordan of anything." 

_"Hey,"_ Crocker said, loud and clear in Jennifer's ears like he was standing right next to her. _"Hey, knock it off. Don't touch me, don't —"_ He cut off with another choked noise, this time mixed with a groan of pain. 

_"Bishop, come here."_ That was Vince. _"You'll be the first."_

_"But I can't touch him,"_ another voice said, one Jennifer didn't recognize. _"He'll dissolve."_

The voices were lost in a lot of yelling and metallic clattering at that, loud enough it made Jennifer's ears hurt. She startled hard when Dwight's hands landed on her shoulders. 

"Turn it back off, Jennifer," he said. "We need to get in there." 

"They're hurting him," she said, the words nearly strangling her. "I heard him screaming in the barn, too, but not like this —" 

Dwight shook her gently. "We're going to save him. But we need to go _now_." 

Jennifer swallowed against the thick lump that had taken up residence in the back of her throat. She didn't try to speak again, or listen. She reached back to rest her hand on her book and wished she still carried around her pills. 

She didn't want to have to hear that ever again.


	6. Chapter 6

Jennifer did her best to follow Dwight's stealthy soldiery moves, and felt like she was a little kid playing at war. 

Especially when there wasn't anyone to actually stealthily steak around. 

"Maybe Jordan really was the only guard?" she whispered, after the fifth exam room proved to be empty. 

Dwight shook his head. "That doesn't make any sense. Vince wouldn't try something this big without backup." 

". . . He might if he's crazy on goo-balls?" 

Dwight stopped, eyes wide and blinking rapidly. "Shit." 

"I just kinda threw off your whole soldier groove, didn't I." 

Dwight shook his head. "The plan hasn't changed. Just means we can move faster." He started down the hall again, but before Jennifer could follow, she heard the voices again. 

_"I'm sorry, Duke,"_ Vince was saying. _"But we need more blood."_

_"You're nuts. It's not working, dammit, just sto —"_ The rest of his sentence was swallowed by a groan. Jennifer pressed her ears over her head. 

"No no no." 

"Jennifer." Dwight's hands were on her wrists, trying to pull her hands away from her head. She jerked away from him. 

"I don't want to hear anymore. Make it stop." 

" _Jennifer._ " Dwight shook her. "I can hear it too." 

Jennifer froze, staring up at him. He could hear it? Was her trouble contagious?! 

Crocker let out a string of curses, and Dwight jerked back upright, zeroing in on a particular room towards the end of the hall. Right, because he could hear Crocker the _normal_ way. They were getting close! 

She broke into a run, ignoring Dwight's little curse and grab as she went past him. She'd seen Crocker after he'd knocked Croatoan out of her. Had watched Gloria and Audrey try desperately to keep him stable and keep his brain from melting until the ambulance had gotten there. She'd felt him _collapse_ , just crumple over with his arms around her and Dave, and that was after she'd spent hours watching her own hands milk aether out of him on the floor of that dingy warehouse and _none of that was okay_. 

She wasn't about to let anyone do any of that to him again. 

She burst through the door with a Xena-esque battle cry she'd practiced for hours as a kid, until her mother had threatened to ban TV in the house for a month. The men in the room — and it was all men — looked up startled as she came in. There were three of them: Vince with his knife, a bearded man holding a phone, and a third man in heavy work gloves who jerked out of her way with a panicked look as she ran past. Crocker lay on a large, metal table between them all, his hands cuffed and locked to a pole that Jennifer thought must normally be for securing an animal's leash. His legs were stretched out and tied down with what looked like rubber hoses. A giant gash down his left calf was bleeding freely, the blood spreading across the table towards a puddle of black aether by his head. 

Jennifer didn't want to know what would happen if those two mixed. 

"Holy shit," Crocker said, staring at her with his eyes wide. "That was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen." 

Jennifer flashed him a grin, then swung her book at Vince's face like a baseball bat. 

She vaguely heard Dwight bursting in behind her, taking down the other two men, but all her focus was on Vince as his head rocked back and the telltale goo-ball floated out of his ear. She waited for the realization, the look on his face that would say that he was normal again and that he knew _cutting people open_ was a Bad Idea, but he just shook his head with a faintly confused look, then frowned down at her. 

"What on earth are you doing here?!"

"Stopping you from being a crazy idiot!" Jennifer hit him again, just in case he'd been extra goo-balled. Vince snatched at the book, managing to tug it out of her hand. 

"Now see here, young lady!" He shook the book at her, then tossed it into the corner. Jennifer swallowed a squawk at seeing it so ill treated, even though she'd been hitting people with it and shoving it in her pocket all day. 

"You're hurting Duke!" 

"I'm saving us all!" 

"Why are you still goo-balled?!" 

"He's not," Dwight said. Jennifer glanced over to see him restraining the guy with the phone. The one with the gloves had backed into a corner and looked like he'd happily just melt into the floor. "This is just Vince." 

"Seriously?!" Jennifer shook her head. 

"I once found him with Dave bound and gagged in the trunk of his car," Dwight said with a sigh. 

"I was doing what needed to be done!" Vince hissed. Dwight pulled a set of zipties from his belt and advanced on him. 

"Why does anyone let him be in charge of anything?!" Jennifer asked, flinging her hands into the air. She stormed over to the corner to grab her book, then go whack the guy with the phone. Just in case. 

"Why does anyone around here do anything?" Crocker asked. His voice was hoarse, and he was holding himself up off the table by the pole his hands were cuffed to. "Magic made them do it." 

"It is my birthright," Vince said haughtily. 

"You're a jackass," Jennifer told him. 

"Loving the rescue," Crocker said. He'd gone paper-pale again, like he'd been when Croatoan had hold of him in the warehouse, and was panting through clenched teeth. "Excellent discourse. Can someone without a trouble _please_ fix my leg?" 

Everyone looked at Jennifer. 

"Why is everyone looking at me?" 

"Because, my dear," Vince said. Jennifer wanted to smack him again just for calling her his 'dear'. "You're the only one here without a trouble." 

"Oh." Jennifer nodded. "So that's not actually true. But . . . I guess I can bandage him up?" She tucked her book away in her pocket again, pulling her shirt _over_ it this time to keep Vince from getting any bright ideas about snatching it again. She looked around for supplies, then grabbed the first thing that looked vaguely bandage like she could find and went to the table where Crocker lay. She couldn't quite bring herself to _touch_ him yet, though. 

That was a lot of blood. And while touching Crocker's skin hadn't done anything bad at the hospital, the last time his _blood_ had touched her . . . hadn't been pleasant.

She dithered, staring at the ugly gash. "What'd they do?" she asked Crocker, pointing to his leg. "Pry this open?" 

"Yeah," Crocker said, dropping his head back onto the table with a _clang_. "That's exactly what they did." 

"We needed more blood." Vince stood at his full height, managing to look supremely dignified and not a little dangerous, despite Dwight pulling his arms behind his back. "Bishop _needs_ to be cured!" 

Jennifer flicked a glance at the man still huddled in the corner, wearing his gloves. "Told them it wouldn't work," he muttered. 

"Whether it would or not," Dwight said. "Kidnapping a man, holding him hostage, and _bleeding him_ are still crimes. Even if it is Duke." 

"You're all heart, Squatch." Crocker hissed as Jennifer carefully put her hand on his bare leg above his knee, looking for a pulse point she could press to slow the bleeding without actually touching the blood. "What do you mean it's not true?" he asked her. "You're touching me. I'm not throwing up." 

Jennifer shrugged. "I don't know. I can still . . . hear things." 

"The barn?" Vince asked, suddenly intensely focussed on her face. "Is it still intact somewhere?" 

"No, _here_." She looked over at the guy with the phone. "You asked why you couldn't gag Duke. And you," this to Bishop, "said you'd just _dissolve him_." 

"That's his trouble," Vince said. "Anything he touches dissolves. Including people." 

A bad taste suddenly flooded Jennifer's mouth. "Oh," she said softly. "That — I'm sorry." She bit her lip. "Whatever Duke's blood did to me, though. . . . It's not a cure. And — it hurts." 

Bishop nodded silently, looking miserable. 

The door to the room swung open, and Audrey and Nathan came in, dragging a cuffed Jordan behind them. "Everything alright in here?" Audrey asked. 

"It's under control," Dwight said with a nod. "Though Crocker's going to need medical attention." 

"Um." Jennifer raised her free hand. "I could use a hand." She gave Crocker a sympathetic look. "Sorry. I kinda . . . can't deal with your blood right now." 

Crocker looked from her to his leg, resigned. "Guess that's fair." He rattled his cuffs. "Maybe you could unlock these instead? My arms are tired." He gave her a very half-hearted smile. Quarter-hearted. 1/64th-hearted. "And so is everything else." 

"Got some busses coming in," Nathan said. "They all been . . . un-gooed?" 

"Vince has." Dwight nodded to the other two. "Not sure if Mitchell and Bishop were gooed to begin with." 

"I got phone guy already," Jennifer said. "I didn't see anything come out, but maybe his was just . . . a little goo-ball?" She looked over at Bishop. "I guess I — can't check you, though." 

Bishop backed up a step and shook his head. "Don't want to wreck your book," he said, voice as soft and apologetic as hers had been. She gave him a sad smile and nodded.

"Thanks." 

Bishop just shrugged back and looked away. 

"Get them out of here," Audrey ordered as she wrapped gauze thickly and tightly around Crocker's leg. "I've got Duke." 

Crocker flashed her a wan smile. "Thanks for that. Nice to be a priority sometimes." 

She gave him a warm, wry smirk in return. "Don't get used to it." 

"I never do." 

"Right." Dwight tugged on Vince's arm. "Let's get the rest of these guys outside, give the ladies some room. Last thing Crocker needs is another accidental brush with a trouble." 

Nathan nodded, exchanging a quick look with Audrey, and pushed Mitchell out of the room. Bishop followed behind them, looking thoroughly miserable. 

"Cuff keys are in my pocket," Audrey offered, angling her hips to give Jennifer access. "We probably shouldn't try to move you before the ambulance gets here," she told Crocker. "But we can at least make you more comfortable." 

"My own team of Florence Nightengales." Crocker gave them both a wan smile as Jennifer unlocked the cuffs and helped him rub feeling back into his hands. He grimaced at the puddle of aether, shifting carefully to make sure he didn't touch it as he started to lever himself upright. 

"Nope," Jennifer said, pushing on his chest. "Lie back down. You don't want your heart above your wound." She looked over at Audrey. "We should elevate his leg." 

Audrey nodded, looking around for something to prop it on. 

"I'm fine," Crocker muttered. But he lay back anyway. "Really tired of being flat on my back." 

"Tell that to your ghost self when he gets here." Jennifer looked up and around. "What do you think is taking him so long?" 

Audrey shrugged. "Most of what I know about ghosts comes from Lexie. So . . . not exactly the most reliable source." 

"Lexie liked the occult?" Crocker asked, smile going a little bit lascivious. "I can see that." 

Jennifer ached faintly to see him looking flirtily at Audrey. There was _so much_ history there, almost as much as there was with Nathan. She could never hope to compete with that. 

Except, apparently in another timeline, she had. And had even won. 

Weird. 

Audrey placed a plastic bucket under Crocker's ankle, bunching up her jacket to use as a cushion. Jennifer looked around, then pulled off her scarf for him to use as a pillow. He smiled up at her as she tucked it under his head, careful to avoid the aether. 

"We gotta stop meeting like this," he said, nodding down at himself. Jennifer looked, noticing for the first time that he was still dressed only in his hospital gown. She'd been too distracted by the blood and the Guard. She could feel herself blushing and looked away with a little snort. 

"You're terrible." 

"Yeah," he agreed lightly. "I know." 

"I'll go check on the ambulances," Audrey said, sounding amused and just a little bit wistful. Jennifer glanced up in time to see her duck her head with a grin and turn towards the door. 

"Aw, don't leave yet. The party's just getting started." 

Jennifer froze, then scrabbled at her back pocket for her book. Would it even work against William? He wasn't a — what did Audrey call them? — an aetherling. Or goo-balled. He was just . . . _nasty_. 

The book pretty demonstrably couldn't cure nasty. 

"Oh god," Crocker muttered. "And I didn't think this day could get any worse." 

"William." Audrey's whole posture shifted, and suddenly Jennifer could see a _world_ of difference between her and Mara. "What are you doing here?" 

"Aw, honey." William tilted his head at her and grinned. "I missed you too." 

"You can't have him," Jennifer said, positioning herself firmly between William and Crocker. 

"You sure?" William asked. "I only need to _borrow_ him. Oh, and you and my sweetheart here, too." He grinned, if possible, even wider. "Real nice of you guys to all be together like this. Alone. Un- _Guard_ -ed." 

Mara sauntered up to him, a little smirk on her face at the pun. She reached up and patted him on the cheek, and Jennifer thought she saw something melt in the man. "Oh William. You are sweet." She shoved his face away. "But I don't need you anymore." 

Pain flashed across Wiliam's face, so fast Jennifer wasn't entirely sure she hadn't imagined it. "You never needed me," he said. "You did love me, though. Before they brainwashed you over. And over. And _over_." 

A hand closed over Jennifer's arm, and she looked down. Crocker was trying to use her to sit up, his face almost entirely bloodless. (Of course it was, his blood was all over the table and the floor. . . .) "Help me up," he hissed. "I'm not facing this guy lying down!" 

Jennifer nodded, tucking her book under her arm so she could offer him both hands. 

The moment they touched skin-to-skin, he lurched away, hard enough that he fell off the table. Jennifer clapped her hands over her mouth, her book falling to the floor, eyes wide. 

He was throwing up aether. 

Because she'd _touched him_. 

"What the hell?!" she burst out. "Am I really troubled or not?!" 

William laughed. Mara tilted her head, eyes narrowed as she looked Jennifer over. 

". . . Both," she said finally. She looked at William. "I'll come with you, but I won't let you hurt them." 

William raised his hands, looking hurt. "Would I do that?" 

"Seriously?!" Jennifer said. Crocker gave him the finger. 

". . . More than I already have?" William amended. "Look, I'm perfectly happy to play nice, here. I'm free of the Void, the Old Man's been sent packing. I'm disappointed about the breakup, but hey, maybe I can win my girl back. There's just _one_ tiny detail to take care of first." He looked between the three of them as Crocker wobbled up onto his knees. "I just need you three to get rid of Charlotte Cross."


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who finally finished the whole draft of this fic last night! You can expect updates to come fast and furious from here on out! (By which I mean probably like biweekly? Unless I get impatient.)
> 
> (Let's be real, I'll probably get impatient. ;D)

". . . Huh." Mara tilted her head and looked back at Crocker and Jennifer. "That could actually work."

"Um, _no?!_ " Jennifer was flailing. She couldn't bring herself to care. "I am not helping to get rid of anyone!" She pointed at William. "Except maybe you!" 

"Well that's not very nice," William said. 

"We're not going to _kill_ her, Jenny," Mara said. Jennifer had never hated that nickname more. "Just — send her home. And discourage her from coming back."

"How 'bout we send Dickbag home," Crocker muttered from the floor. He'd folded over his knees, forehead resting on the tile. Like he was in a yoga pose. Or maybe duck-and-covering. "And let Mommy Dearest cure the troubles like Other Me said she could."

William looked faintly insulted. "What fun would that be?"

"We do kinda need to end the troubles," Mara said. 

"But we worked so hard on them."

"They _kill people_ ," Jennifer hissed. 

"And even when they don't they suck," Crocker said. 

William sighed. "You people have no sense of adventure."

Mara looked like she was eating something distasteful. "I made them for Dad, William. So he could get his revenge."

"I hate that guy," William muttered. 

"Agreed," said Crocker. He was trying to sit up again. Jennifer had to stop herself from trying to help. 

"He never came for me." Mara frowned, and Jennifer thought she saw hints of Audrey creeping into her expression. Was that how it worked? Did Mara and Audrey have some sort of — timeshare on their face? They were two people sharing one body, while Crocker and Duke were one person split into two. . . . "My father could have overpowered that fool Howard easily while I was in the barn," Mara was saying. "But he never did. I don't think I want his revenge anymore." She went over to Crocker and helped him climb slowly to his feet. Well. Foot. "I just want to stay here. With my friends."

"Great!" William clapped his hands. "We're on the same page. Sinister's outside, getting us a ride."

Jennifer clung to her book. "We are not on the same page!"

"Help her with Mr. Pukey over there would you?" William said, unconcerned. 

"Excuse me? No." Jennifer pointed a vicious finger at him. Or what would be a vicious finger if her hand weren't shaking so hard. " _No,_ because _that would make him puke more!_ "

William rolled his eyes and sighed. "I forgot how slow you people could be. What are you holding, Tinkerbell?"

Why did no one in this town use people's proper names?

Jennifer frowned at her pointed finger. William flicked his gaze down to her chest. She looked, and saw that she was clutching her book. 

Her otherworldly magic book that made the aether goo-balls go away.

"Are you saying the book makes him not throw up?"

William shrugged, bobbing his head with an exaggerated frown. " _Now_ you're catching on."

Jennifer turned away, running the day through her head. Had she been holding it in the hospital? She hadn't, had she? It would have been in her pocket. Where, unless she tucked her shirt in, the top edge hit the bare skin on her back, because women's pants had crap for pockets. But when she went to help Crocker a minute ago, she'd had it under her arm, and her sleeve would have insulated it. . . .

"Ohhhhh I hate today." 

She jammed the book into her pocket, making sure her shirt wasn't in the way, and went to go help Mara — Audrey — Maudrey? With Crocker. 

"Hate hate hate it."

Crocker gave her a weak grin. "Yeah. Me too."

"Very nice. Mutual hatred society." William waved to the door. "Can we go now?"

Maudrey flashed Jennifer a very Audrey smile, and between the two of them, they helped Crocker make his very slow, limping way to the door. They were met there by Sinister, dressed as a paramedic, and a big hulk of a guy who seemed to be about 50% jaw. 

"Hey," Crocker said weakly. "Didn't I melt you?"

The hulk looked unimpressed. "Didn't take."

"Nice thing about making your friends out of aether," William said cheerfully. "Anything happens to them, you can just remake them." He nodded to the hulk. "Load him up, will you?" The hulk stepped forward and Crocker did his very best to back up. "Oh don't worry," William said. "He's made of your new and improved aether. He couldn't hurt you if he tried. Guess you're kind of like his dad now, huh."

The hulk grinned. Crocker didn't look any happier.

Jennifer jerked up her book like she was holding up a cross to a vampire. "Don't touch him."

The hulk's grin turned to a scowl, and he backed off. 

"You're learning." William stared at her. He didn't look too happy about it. 

"Come on," Maudrey said, guiding Crocker to the gurney. "At least this way you won't have to worry about falling over and flashing everyone."

Jennifer helped get her get him settled as best she could while still brandishing her book to keep William's goons away. Crocker lay down, then tugged on Jennifer's sleeve.

"Hey," he said. His eyes were vague and unfocused, and kind of glassy. She wondered how high his fever had gotten. "I kind of love you."

Jennifer pushed the hair out of his face with her free hand. "You're kind of delirious."

Crocker wobbled his head in something that wasn't quite disagreement. 

"Come on," Maudrey said again, still with that soft tone. When Jennifer looked over, she was watching them both with that slightly melancholy fondness again. "Let's go." She squeezed Crocker's hand. "At least back at the hospital we can get you stitched up."

Jennifer looked around. William had melted away, leaving Sinister and the hulk—what had Crocker called the other goon? Heavy? — to escort them out. It made sense; Dwight and Nathan would probably recognize William. She wondered why Sinister and Heavy weren't better disguised too. 

Not that it mattered; Dwight wasn't even there by the time they got outside, and Nathan was busy loading Vince and his crew into cruisers. He barely even glanced up at them, except to give Maudrey a little nod as she helped Jennifer follow Crocker into the back of the ambulance. Both their expressions were unreadable. Jennifer hoped they really did have some kind of psychic, brain-meld connection now, and that Maudrey was telling him to go for help. 

"I'll ride up front with William," she said to Jennifer, once Nathan had turned away again. "See if I can talk some sense into him." 

"And what if he talks his sense into you?" 

Maudrey rolled her eyes and smirked, 100% Mara again as far as Jennifer could tell. "Please. He's never talked me into anything in his life." 

And then she was closing the doors. Sinister and Heavy had melted away again — maybe even literally — and it was just Jennifer and Crocker now, all alone. 

Crocker looked around and sat up, smooth and easy like he hadn't been wobbly and slow and delirious a moment ago. "They got any suture kits in here?" 

"What are you doing?!" Jennifer hissed, batting at his hands as he tried to rifle through the various boxes and, like, drawers and things in the ambulance. "I thought you were all messed up on fever and blood loss!" 

"Yeah." Crocker nodded. "And so did Dickface. Help me find something so I can stitch up my leg." 

" _No!_ " Jennifer grabbed his wrists, and though he tugged against her, he either wouldn't or couldn't pull away. She shot a quick glance towards the front of the ambulance. There was another door there, made of metal and some sort of thick plexiglass, separating the cab from the rest of the ambulance. She lowered her voice anyway. "Duke, that's nuts! You can't stitch your own leg!" 

"Done it before." He looked her in the eye, and she didn't think it was just the bloodloss and his trouble that made him look so . . . done. "Jennifer, let go." 

Jennifer bit her lip and shook her head. 

"Jennifer," he said again, a strange hollow note under her name. "Please." 

"You need two hands, right?" She let go of his left wrist and turned his right hand over, uncurling his fingers so they could both see the bandage wrapping his palm. And the angry, puffy red skin around it. "One of yours doesn't work right now." 

Crocker closed his eyes and swallowed. His whole being seemed to slump. "I need to do something, Jennifer. I've gone from — kidnapped to the hospital to kidnapped to the hospital to _kidnapped_. . . . I'm just getting passed around like — he called me a tool. Like I'm actually a hammer or a wrench or something. I need to _do something._ " 

Jennifer's chest hurt at the look on his face. She let go of his hands and slid her fingers into his messy hair instead, holding his head and trying not to think about how warm he felt. How hot he could get before his brain really did start boiling. "You will," she promised, then tried on a little smile. "But not if you mess up your leg trying to do stitches like an idiot." 

Crocker searched her expression, then nodded. "I can see it, you know."

Jennifer frowned. "See what?" 

"Why the other me was in love with you." 

"Well, yeah." Jennifer tilted her head and shrugged. "I'm kind of awesome." 

"You are." There was no teasing in Crocker's voice. Jennifer was starting to wish she'd named him 'Duke' instead of the ghost, who seemed to have abandoned them. 

Well. It was just in her head. Maybe she could anyway. 

The ambulance went careening around a corner, and Jennifer had to grab onto the wall to keep from tumbling over. Duke latched onto her, the unsecured gurney tilting dangerously. 

"Sorry!" William called back, not sounding sorry at all. "We're almost there!" 

"I really hate that guy," Duke said. 

Jennifer nodded, her eyes wide. "Right?!" She looked around for something to secure the gurney with, but whatever the actual EMTs used, she wasn't seeing it. So she just sat down next to him and did her best to brace it with her body instead. "What do you think the plan is?" 

"For Dr. Cross?" 

"Yeah." She drummed her fingers on the thin mattress. "Why the three of us? I mean, Audrey or Mara or whoever is the trouble expert, so she makes sense. But I'm — nobody." 

Duke tilted her head at her. "You don't really think that, do you?" 

Jennifer shrugged. "I mean, okay. Sure. Magic book. 'Child of Ruin' or whatever. It's not like I actually know what any of that means." 

"Means something, though." He reached over to rub her leg. "Or maybe you're just here to wrangle me." 

"Wrangle." 

"Yeah. I'm all kinds of trouble." His mouth quirked up on one side. "Full of all kinds of troubles, anyway. That's what he wants me for. I'm all chock-full of fancy nu-aether. Same great taste in a fresh new formula." 

"They don't set you off, though," Jennifer pointed out. "So. Maybe _that's_ what I'm for. I'm the tap on the nu-aether keg." 

Duke stared into nothing for a moment, then wrinkled his nose. "Is being a keg any better than being a hammer?" 

"Maybe if we play our cards right, we can be heroes instead." 

Duke scoffed. "God, no. Heroes _always_ get screwed in the end." 

They lapsed into silence again. Jennifer tilted her head to rest it on his shoulder, and he leaned his head against hers. It would have been cozy, if the situation weren't, you know, all kinds of dire. 

"We should come up with a plan," Jennifer said at length. "Figure out a way to act instead of react." 

"I'm better than a plan," Duke said, sounding a million miles away. Jennifer couldn't see, but she thought maybe his eyes were closed. 

"Okay." She shifted so she could hold him up if he fell asleep. "That's good to know. I'm going to come up with one anyway, though. Just in case." 

She didn't know why William had said they were 'almost there', except maybe to continue being an asshole. It felt like she was sitting there forever with Duke resting heavily against her, listening to the slow in-and-out of his breath and wondering what she'd do if it just suddenly stopped. And trying to think of a plan. 

They didn't have much. Duke was barely mobile, no matter how hard he tried to kid himself that he'd been exaggerating his infirmity for William and his thugs. And Jennifer wasn't exactly much of a fighter, new magic-book tactics or no. William wasn't vulnerable to her magic book, anyway. He and Mara and Dr. Cross and Croatoan weren't aether-powered. They were just _creepy_. 

Except. . . .

Except Audrey had used the nu-aether on herself. That was how she and Nathan were all bonded or whatever now, wasn't it? And nu-aether-Heavy was afraid of her book, so maybe it worked on nu-aether as well as aether-classic. 

But then hitting her would just, what, sever her link to Nathan? That wouldn't do them any good. Not unless it let Nathan know something was wrong, and to bring in the cavalry? 

That was way too big a 'maybe' to depend on. They needed something concrete, something they _knew_ could work. 

And she didn't really know anything, did she? 

Okay. Okay, she could do this. She was a _reporter_ , dammit, figuring stuff out was what she _did_. And she was going to start with herself, because having William of all people be the one to clue her into how her magic book interacted with her trouble was really pissing her off. 

Speaking of the magic book. She opened it up, but the riddle inside hadn't changed. 

_In times of great evil, the Child of Ruin must find the heart of Haven and summon the door._

The door in the lighthouse, which ghost-Duke — Crocker — whoever — had _really firmly_ told her she shouldn't open. But the book didn't say to _open_ the door, just to summon it. 

But what did you do with a door if you weren't going to open it? Lock it? 

Could she lock the Void? 

Okay, that was another one in the 'maybe' file. She could do better than that. 

So. She could summon doors, apparently. Like the one on the bluff that she'd seen when future-Duke — goddammit why did there have to be two Dukes? — had been holding the thinny open. He hadn't wanted her to open that one, either. So she could summon doors, but shouldn't open them. And she could . . . hear things. 

She'd heard Duke and Audrey and Howard in the Barn. 

She'd heard Duke in the vet's office, when he was being cut open. 

What was the connection there? Was it Duke screaming? She wished she could look over at him, but with him asleep on top of her head that wasn't really in the cards right now. She really shouldn't have let him fall asleep on her like that. 

So she'd heard Duke. Who was full of aether, even before William did the whole trouble whammy on him. That was what his old trouble was, right? That was why future-Duke was all messed up, because all the troubles inside of him had activated and, like, tried to kill him or something. She wasn't super clear on what had happened to future-Duke, other than that he'd loved her and then she'd died. 

Nope. Don't think about dying. 

Okay, so Duke was full of aether. And Audrey used aether. So maybe Jennifer could summon doors and — hear aether? 

That _didn't make any sense_. And why the magic book? And what the fuck was a 'Child of Ruin'? 

She let out a little growl of frustration that woke Duke up with a snort, and immediately started to apologize. 

"You two okay back there?" Maudrey called. Jennifer had apparently gotten loud enough for her to hear her, even through that little metal door. 

_Through the door_. 

She could hear the Barn because she could summon the door. She'd just heard it before she knew the doors were there. But what door had she been listening through at the vet's office? 

"We're terrible," Duke was saying back through the door. "You'd better stop and let us out." 

William laughed and said something mean, Jennifer assumed. She'd stopped listening. She scooted back so that she wouldn't be visible if William tried to look back through the door, and clamped her hands down over her ears to see if she could hear through any other doors right now. 

All she could hear was the rush of blood through her ears, and the _bada-thump-thump, bada-thump-thump_ of her terrified heartbeat. 

Dammit. She'd really thought she might be onto something there. She dropped her hands back into her lap and looked up at Duke, who was looking down at her with a little concerned frown. 

Then William shouted, and the ambulance's brakes squealed, and very little made any sense at all for about the next seventy seconds or so. 

There was spinning. She and Duke were both tossed off the gurney, which slammed into Jennifer's side moments after she hit the floor. Then there was more spinning, which was maybe just her head and not the actual world, but it sure as hell felt like someone had just taken a galactic-sized pool cue and slammed the entire planet into the corner pocket. When she managed to blink away the stars, she was lying on her back staring up at bright, open doors, and wondering if she was supposed to summon them or open them or lock them or what. 

Then her eyes focused a little better, and the bright light resolved into sunlight. The ambulance had come to rest on its side, and everything in it, it felt like, had come to rest on _her_ side. A figure moved into the doorway and resolved into Dave Teagues. 

"Hurry!" he said, waving at her. "William and Audrey won't stay out for long!" 

"Wha. . . ?" Jennifer managed. She pushed herself up onto her elbows. "Did — did you just run down an ambulance?!" 

"Don't be silly," Dave said. "Nathan did." 

"Right," Duke said on a groan. "That makes it all better." Jennifer looked over to see him crawling towards the doors, his hair hanging in his face. At least it didn't look like he was bleeding anywhere. He couldn't afford to lose any more blood. 

Jennifer patted herself down. "My book, where's my book?" 

Dave shook his head. "No time! We've got to move!" 

"I need my book," Jennifer said. She pushed uselessly at the overturned gurney, which was more leaning against her than on top of her, but still felt very much _in the way_. She felt ill and wondered if maybe she wasn't thinking entirely straight. "It's mine! . . . And also it's magic!" 

"She's right," Duke said. "We need that book." Jennifer felt weirdly vindicated. Of course, she couldn't touch him without it, so naturally he felt it was important. Duke let out a little strangled whimper of pain, and Jennifer snapped her head up to see Dave dragging him carefully out of the ambulance. The bandage around Duke's leg was bright red. She wondered how much more of all this nonsense he could actually take. 

Then she spotted that familiar black and red cover and let out a triumphant shout, diving across the wreckage of medical supplies to snatch it up. 

"Great, great," Dave said, peering around the side — bottom — of the ambulance. "Let's go!" 

Jennifer jammed the book into her pants and staggered to her feet. The floor — wall? — tried to twist sideways out from under her, and she clung to the wall — roof — until she felt a little less like she was on a conveyor belt, then straightened up. 

"Oh," she said, looking past the ambulance, and the smoking hulk of Nathan's truck, to the building they'd been creamed in front of. The hospital. "We're here. That's handy." 

Then her knees went out from under her, and Dave dropped Duke in a futile attempt to catch her before she hit the ground.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a brief reference to a possible past sexual assault in this chapter. It's no more than a couple words long, and not dwelled on at all, but heads up if that's triggering for you!

"Here, set her down." 

"Excuse me, what do you think you're doing? This isn't the emergency department!" 

Oh. Someone was very angry. Jennifer really hoped they weren't angry at her. 

"We know, Dr. Cross. But we need help!"

The world suddenly changed position on Jennifer. She realized, once it had stabilized again, that someone had been carrying her, and wasn't anymore. 

"Yes, I can see that. That one's unconscious, and this one's clearly going into hypovolemic shock. Which is why they should be in the ER, not a research laboratory!" 

"Dr. Cross," Jennifer mumbled. She opened her eyes and squinted against the bright light. "She's gonna fix the troubles." 

"Here's hoping." A very broad man standing above her smiled down at her. Jennifer smiled back. 

"Hi Dwight." 

The man laughed and shook his head. "'Fraid not, ma'am. Name is McHugh." 

"Oh." Jennifer closed her eyes again. "Everyone here is so big." 

"You can't stay here," the angry woman said. Someone replaced the giant standing over Jennifer, and then there was a _whole_ lot more light, an entire lightsaber drilling through her brain. "This woman needs a CT." 

"Where's William?" Jennifer asked. She tried to roll away from the light and came up against something hard and cold. A railing. There was fabric under her. She squinted. 

She was on a gurney. There were tile floors and cream-colored walls. Jennifer was nearly certain those things should tell her where she was, but her head hurt too hard to focus on more than one thing at a time, and at this precise moment that one thing was that her _head hurt_. 

"William?" The woman asked. "He's here?" 

"Outside, Dr. Cross," someone said. Not the giant. Dave. Dave was the opposite of a giant. "And he's coming after you!"

"Oh," Jennifer said, swallowing. " _You're_ Dr. Cross." 

"I am, yes." The woman flicked her a quick smile. "I'm Dr. Charlotte Cross, with the CDC. We met briefly, I believe, the last time you were here. How is your back?"

"My head hurts," Jennifer said. The smile fell off Dr. Cross's face. 

"Yes. Well, it looks like you struck it rather firmly on something. I'd very much like to help you, but I'm not a trauma specialist. For that you'll need the _emergency department_." 

She glared up at . . . other people. The giant and Dave and maybe Duke? Was Duke still there? Jennifer opened her eyes and squinted. They were in a hallway, outside an office. Duke was leaning on Dave, looking about as pale as Jennifer had ever seen a living person look. The giant, McSomething, had stepped back, like he was playing bodyguard. 

That was good. He was probably _really good_ at that game. 

"We can't bring them there," Dave said. "That's where Nathan took Audrey and William." 

Dr. Cross didn't look happy, but finally nodded and stepped out of her doorway, gesturing for them to follow her into the room across the hall. McGiant pushed Jennifer's gurney along and she tipped her head back to smile up at him. 

And then snapped her eyes shut again with a groan, because looking up while moving was a _bad idea_. 

"I still say this woman needs a CT, but we'll wait for the coast to be clear if we must." Jennifer opened her eyes again when the gurney stopped moving, and watched Dr. Cross help Duke into a chair. "Let me see that leg. What happened?" 

"William decided to kidnap us in an ambulance," Duke said, hissing as she unwrapped his bandaid. "After I got kidnapped by Vince, who thought my blood could cure the troubles. Then I guess Nathan hit the ambulance with his truck." 

Dr. Cross snapped her head up. "Is Mara alright?" 

"Unconscious," Dave said. McWhosit had disappeared again, maybe standing guard outside. Jennifer missed him faintly. "Her and William both. Nathan says she told him to do it." 

"Ah, yes, their . . . bond." Dr. Cross looked faintly ill as she wiped disinfectant across the wound on Duke's leg. "I suppose I'll have to trust that my daughter thought her plan out all the way through. Why did he want the two of you, though? I understand your involvement, Mr. Crocker." 

"Duke," Duke said. "'Mr. Crocker' makes it sound like you're angry at me." 

"Duke, then." Dr. Cross nodded. "I'll need to stitch this. Mr. Teagues, there should be lidocaine and suture kits on the shelves behind you." 

"Careful," Dave said, as he started sifting through medical supplies. "His blood can be caustic." 

"I'm aware." Dr. Cross didn't look up from her examination of Duke's leg. "I'm also immune. Or should be. The way your body processes aether now though, Duke, it's — entirely unprecedented."

"Goody for me," Duke said. Dave set the supplies he'd picked out on Duke's lap, hopping back as soon as he could without dropping them. Dr. Cross measured out the medications. 

"What is your involvement, Ms. . . ?" she asked.

"Doors," Jennifer said. She was starting to feel a little more with it, so she slowly pushed herself upright. And immediately felt a little less with it again. "I mean, Jennifer. I'm Jennifer. And I'm the — thing. The Child of Doors." She frowned. "That's not it." 

Dr. Cross was staring at her now, though Duke's leg was still open on her lap. Jennifer didn't like that stare. The woman had the narrow-eyed glare of a predator. 

"You're a halfling," Dr. Cross said. "Like Mr. Teagues here." 

"Um," Jennifer said. 

"Like me?" Dave asked. "You mean . . . was she adopted from the Void, too?" 

"Howard left me a book," Jennifer told him. 

"Howard." Dr. Cross turned her attention back to Duke's leg and started suturing. "I would love to get a DNA sample later, Jennifer, if you're willing." 

"I have a door trouble," Jennifer said. She leaned over her legs as her stomach tried to do a flip. 

"I think she's still a little loopy," Duke said. 

"A halfling with a trouble." Dr. Cross was shaking her head. 

"I have a book," Jennifer said again. She reached around herself one way and then the other, trying to find it. "It's — a magic book. A troubled book." 

"Here you go." Dave held her book out to her, and Jennifer snatched it away from him, curling it to her chest like a teddy bear. "You dropped it when you passed out. I made sure it was safe." 

"May I?" Dr. Cross asked, setting her suturing aside and holding her hand out. Jennifer gave her a shrewd look. Or possibly a concussed one. 

Her head really hurt. 

She slowly held the book out, but didn't let go when Dr. Cross tried to take it. She stared at Dr. Cross's ears, watching for the goo-ball. 

No, wait. She was Mara's mom. She was un-goo-ball-able. 

Jennifer giggled. 

"It just looks like an ordinary book to me," Dr. Cross said. 

"It's not!" Jennifer flailed her free hand for Duke. "I'll show you." 

"Can we finish my leg first, please?" Duke asked. 

Jennifer slouched back a little. "I guess." 

"I take it the book does something dramatic?" Dr. Cross asked. 

"It makes me not-troubled," Jennifer said. "When I'm holding it. If I'm not, I'm the keg tap." 

"The what?" Dr. Cross looked at Duke and Dave, as though she needed them to translate. 

"I'm the keg," Duke said dryly. "You know, full of . . . 'processed aether'." 

"Your family must have absorbed a lot of troubles," Dr. Cross said. "As far as I know, you've already . . . released . . . several gallons of aether. I'd think your 'keg' would be empty." 

"Yeah," Duke agreed on a sigh. "You'd think." 

"How did you come to realize this book was . . . magic?" Dr. Cross asked, glancing back at Jennifer as she continued suturing Duke's leg. Jennifer realized she was interviewing her, and did her best to sit up a little straighter. 

"I can see things in it," she said. "No one else can see them." 

"Like what?" 

Jennifer held up the book. "The symbol. Instead of the moon. And on the inside, there's a — a prophecy or something." She flipped it open and showed Dr. Cross the dedication page, reading it off. 

Dr. Cross went nearly as pale as Duke, dropping the suture needle. Duke squawked faintly. 

"The Child of Ruin," Dr. Cross whispered, then made a clear effort to compose herself. "You — you said you were adopted, yes?" 

"No," Jennifer said. "I mean, yes. I was. But Dave said it. Guessed it. Not me. You have to cite your sources." 

"Do you know anything about your birth parents?" Dr. Cross asked. 

Jennifer shook her head and winced. "The other Duke showed me the address on my adoption records. But that's more than I ever got when I tried to look them up." 

"When is your birthday?" 

Jennifer shrank back just a little bit. "Why do you want to know?" 

"Please. Humor me." 

Jennifer sighed. "June 12. 1981." 

Dave gasped. "The day the troubles started last time." 

Oh god, he had it memorized. Like some kind of anniversary. "Um," Jennifer said. "That seems like a _bad_ coincidence." She looked back up at Dr. Cross, only to find her staring at her with her hand pressed over her mouth. "Please don't tell me I started the troubles." 

"William and Mara started the troubles," Duke said, but he didn't sound nearly certain enough of that for Jennifer's tastes. 

"They did, yes," Dr. Cross said. "This — none of this is your fault, Jennifer. You . . . I believe you may be my daughter's half-sister." 

"Oh." Jennifer relaxed. And then didn't. "Wait." 

Duke seemed to make the connection, too. "You're not her mom, are you." 

"No." Dr. Cross finished her last suture and laid a clean square of gauze over Duke's wound. "No, I've only ever had one child." 

"Mara's dad is the one who took me over and made me hurt people," Jennifer said softly. 

"Me too," Dave said sympathetically. 

Jennifer didn't want his sympathy. " _My_ dad took me over and made me hurt people?" 

"Hang on." Duke raised a hand and pushed to the edge of his seat. "People from your universe can't get troubles. That's part of what makes my whole . . . thing so weird, I make aether that can give them to you. Right?" 

Dr. Cross nodded. "That's right, Duke. But my ex-husband has always wanted to find new ways to work with the aether. And I believe, Jennifer, that you are the result of one of those experiments." 

"I'm an _experiment?_ " Jennifer needed to pace. She needed her head to stop spinning so she could pace. 

Stopping her head from spinning would be easier if her entire sense of self weren't being constantly reshaped over here. 

"I'm sorry," Dr. Cross said, and she sounded like she genuinely meant it. "But I think so. I believe he was attempting to — crossbreed. With troubled people." 

"The doors." Jennifer felt hot all over. She pressed her book to her forehead, concentrating on the cool feel of the glossy cover. "My trouble is doors. To the Void." 

"Your mother must have crossed over. Howard would have seen it happen. The barn was in the Void specifically so he could keep an eye on things. When you were born, he must have taken you from my ex-husband to keep you safe." 

"What." Jennifer swallowed. She didn't look up. "What happened to my birth mother?" 

"I have no idea." Dr. Cross's hands closed gently around Jennifer's wrists, and tugged her hands down. "You're a very powerful young woman, Jennifer. I believe —" She paused, taking a deep breath. "If anyone can defeat William, banish him back to the Void where he belongs, it's you." 

"If I do that," Jennifer said. Her voice sounded very, very small. "I'll die." She looked over at Duke. "That's what the other you said. I tried to banish William, and I died. And everything just got worse." 

"Then that's not the plan," Duke said firmly. He looked up at Dr. Cross. "That's _not_ the plan!" 

Dr. Cross nodded. But Jennifer was pretty sure she was just humoring them. 

Jennifer was pretty sure that if her death was what it took to get rid of William, Dr. Cross would be more than willing to make that sacrifice. 

"I'd like to go to the Emergency Room now." Jennifer pushed up off the gurney and stumbled to the door. Dr. Cross was suddenly there, grabbing hold of her arm and holding her up. 

"Sit down, Jennifer," she said, gently but firmly. Like a mom. Jennifer missed her mom so fiercely it hurt, more than it had in years. "We don't have the answers yet, but we will. If you'd both let me take some samples? Then I'll call up and see if the CT scanner is available." 

Jennifer looked at Duke. Duke stared back, looking more defeated than she'd ever seen him before. Even when Croatoan was riding her around and turning him into a puddle on the floor. 

She let out a deep sigh. "Okay. Samples." She let Dr. Cross ease her back onto the gurney, and clung to her book. "This plan sucks, by the way." 

"That's because it's not a plan yet," Dr. Cross said. She had that motherly tone again. Jennifer wanted to smack her. Just because she was Dr. Cross's daughter's half-sister didn't mean Dr. Cross got to pretend she cared about her. "But we'll find one, sweetheart. Don't worry." 

Jennifer rolled over, her back to her and the rest of the room. 

"My name's _Jennifer_."

* * *

This was not Jennifer's first CT scan. She'd had a few, right after the voices first started — her trouble first activated, she supposed. They'd wanted to see if she had a tumor. 

She hadn't. And apparently troubles didn't show up on CT scans. She wondered if they showed on MRIs. 

Still, it meant she was very familiar with the process of changing into a hospital gown while a bored orderly stood by with a bucket for her personal items. With a headscan she'd get to keep her pants, but Dr. Cross had apparently decided she should get the full-body treatment, since she'd been 'unrestrained in a collision'. She was feeling a lot better, now that she was in a familiar environment and no one was trying to blow her mind with uncomfortable revelations about her parentage. You know, aside from a headache and a general feeling like she'd just started a strenuous new workout routine. But Dr. Cross had said that could just be shock, and they should run tests to be sure she wasn't bleeding internally.

Jennifer lay back on the little bed thing that went through the big white hoop of the scanner. It was dark in here, just like it had been at the one in Boston, and mostly empty except for the scanner itself. The ceiling was made of those little pockmarked tiles. The orderly and the tech or whatever were off in another room, so it was just Jennifer and a giant, humming machine shooting her up with radiation. 

Which meant she had awhile. To lie here with her thoughts, and try to deal with what Dr. Cross had told her. 

Her birth father was Croatoan. He'd seduced — or more likely, _attacked_ — her birth mother, and Howard, the creepy dude she'd heard in the Barn, had rescued her as a baby and put her up for adoption. 

Which was why she had a trouble. But also a magic book. 

She didn't have her book on her now. It was in the tub with her clothes and her jewelry and everything else. She still didn't know why it worked the way it did. Maybe it was part of the Barn? Like, Howard had taken a piece of it and turned it into a book for some reason? And that was why it had an effect on aether? 

She couldn't tell what made sense anymore. And she was pretty sure it wasn't just from her head injury. 

There was a door to the barn, which she'd heard Audrey and Howard and Duke through. There was a door on the bluff, which had led to the barn and had let William in somehow, and one in a lighthouse which apparently led to Croatoan. And her death. 

But there was also a door somewhere that she'd heard _Duke_ through. In the vet's office. It wasn't linked to the barn, she didn't think, and she'd only heard through it when she concentrated. Maybe she could hear through _any_ doors, not just magic ones? 

She closed her eyes and concentrated on the door to the technician's room. There were two people in there, the tech and the orderly, and unless they were really comfortable with each other — or really hated each other, she supposed — they were not going to be just sitting there in silence, right? 

So she listened. She listened harder than she'd listened to anything before. She heard the scanner, and the hiss of the air conditioning. She heard the faint hum under those that lived in every building run on electricity, of distant fans and humming lights and other tiny, not even microscopic movements. She heard her breath — until the little intercom clicked on and they asked her to hold it. She heard the intercom. She heard her heartbeat. 

_Bada-thump-thump. Bada-thump-thump._

. . . Hang on. 

That wasn't what heartbeats sounded like. 

Her pulse sped up, and she had to fight to keep holding still. She didn't exhale when the tech told her to, she hardly even heard them, concentrating so hard on that heartbeat. _Those_ heartbeats. Hers, _ba-thump, ba-thump_ , and _someone else's_. 

_"I'm not going to let her die, you know,"_ a voice said. Duke's. She was hearing him again. Was he waiting for a CT, too? He'd been in the same accident she'd been in, after all. That didn't explain why she could hear his heart, though. 

And it was his. That was the second heartbeat. 

_Da-thump. Da-thump._

Jennifer was on the verge of something, she could feel it. She had all the pieces, or most of them, or at least enough to put this one part of the puzzle together, to connect the photos on her mental bulletin board with mental twine. Enough to give her a lead, at least. If she could just — 

_In times of great evil, the Child of Ruin must find the heart of Haven and summon the door._

Great evil. William. 

Child of Ruin. Jennifer. 

The heart of Haven. 

The _heart_. Of Haven. 

Jennifer let out her breath and sat up sharply. "It's not the lighthouse!" 

"Ma'am!" The orderly was standing in front of her, his eyes wide. "Please don't get up! Are you alright? Didn't you hear us telling you to breathe?" 

"I have to go." Jennifer hopped off the CT bed, shoving the orderly away. Or trying to, as he seemed determined to hold her down. "I have to _go!_ " 

"Ma'am, Ms. Mason, we need to finish your scan. You just had some kind of seizure or something. You could have a brain bleed." 

Jennifer shook her head. "It's not a seizure, I just wasn't listening to you!" 

"Ma'am —" 

"I know how to stop the troubles!" 

The orderly let her go so suddenly she nearly fell. His eyes were round and wild. 

"For sure?" he asked, voice barely above a whisper. Jennifer nodded quickly. The orderly looked back over his shoulder, then nodded back and pressed her towards the door. 

"Do it quick," he said. " _Please_. My partner's troubled, and they —" He cut off and swallowed. "Do it _quick_." 

Jennifer nodded. "Um. Can I have my stuff first?" 

The orderly shoved the plastic tub into her hands, then shoved her out the door. 

"Thank you!" she called, then started down the hallway. And stopped. And turned to go back and knock on the door. 

"Um," she said again, when the orderly peered out at her. "Which way is Dr. Cross's office from here?"


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another brief mention of probable past sexual assault. Because Croatoan is awful and Jennifer is all kinds of awkward. Heads up!

The giant — Mc _Hugh_ — was still outside Dr. Carr's office, though he looked more like he'd stepped out to take a phone call than he was standing guard, this time. 

"Seriously? Man, why are you talking to _me?_ " He shook his head. "I'm happy for you, I am, but I'm hanging up so you can talk to _her_." He snapped his phone shut and looked up at Jennifer. "All good, ma'am?" 

"Hm?" Jennifer flashed him what was apparently a fairly manic smile, judging by the way his head rocked back just a bit. "Oh, yeah, totally fine. No brain bleeds or seizures." 

He flicked his eyes away and back and nodded. "Glad to hear it. The doc stepped out to get something for those samples." 

"Cool." Jennifer had the sort of shaky adrenaline feeling that would normally have her practically vibrating on her toes, but she ached a little too much for more than a single bounce. "Is Duke still in there?" 

He nodded again. "Resting up. Working through a juice box and a cookie." 

"Cool, great, awesome. Do me a favor?" 

McHugh's eyes flicked away again for a second. "So long as I can still keep an eye on things while I do it, sure." 

"Oh, totally." Jennifer jerked her chin at the phone still in his hand. "Call Nathan? Ask him to come over here. And bring Audrey. You know, if she's conscious yet. Or — maybe if she's not, too. I'm not sure if she has to be conscious or not." 

"Yeah," McHugh said slowly. Jennifer was pretty sure he thought she had a brain bleed after all. "I'll get right on that." 

"Thanks!" Jennifer flashed him another grin and ducked into the supply room. 

Duke was slouched in the same chair Dave had set him in, his injured leg propped on the one Dr. Cross had used. Someone had finally gotten him some pants — an entire set of scrubs, even, that hung off him in a way that almost made him look small, though the pants were an inch or so too short. He sucked on the tiny straw of a kid's juice box, and looked up at her with a scowl. "Gloria has better snacks," he said, or kind of croaked, really. He took another sip, all air by the sound of it. "You look . . . better?" 

"I look like crap," Jennifer said. "But I'm mobile. And I have a plan." 

Duke sat up, crushing the juice box in his hand, and looked to the sky. "Thank you. It's about time someone did." 

"You're probably going to hate it," Jennifer told him. 

Duke tossed the juice box aside. "So what else is new?" 

Jennifer paced. Even though her legs hurt. And her head. And her . . . everything else. Maybe she should have stayed for the full, proper scan? Whatever, they'd probably seen enough. They could rush her to surgery or whatever when all this was done. "We should probably wait for Nathan and Audrey. I don't want to have to explain this twice." 

"Okay," Duke said. "You want to maybe sit down?" 

"Nope! I have to pace. I have to keep moving. I don't know how much time we have left." 

McHugh knocked and leaned through the door. "Nathan got the message. He wants me down there to help keep a hold on William while he and Audrey come up here." 

Jennifer nodded rapidly. "Good plan. Thank you!" 

She watched Duke and McHugh share a glance. Whatever. She might look crazy now, but they'd thank her when this — and the troubles — were all over. 

She paused. "Is Dr. Cross coming back?" 

Duke shrugged. "Eventually?" 

"Okay." She started pacing again. "She doesn't need to be here for it. I don't think." She paused. "What about Duke? The other Duke. Your ghost." She started up again before he could answer. "Whatever, you can't see him anyway. Do you want Gloria, maybe? I could see if someone can call Gloria." 

"Jennifer." Duke stuck out his free leg, high enough to stop her short instead of trip her. She still had enough momentum that she almost fell anyway. " _Stop_." 

"I can't. I'm terrified, okay? I have no idea if I'm right except — that I know I'm right! Because I'm the Child of Ruin and William and Croatoan are great evils, and I'm supposed to find the heart! Which means I'll know what the heart is when I see it, and I've seen it so now I know it." 

"Yeah." Duke shook his head. "I didn't follow that at all." 

"Doesn't matter." Jennifer spun on her toes and started towards the opposite wall. "You don't have to know it, I'm the one who has to know it. And — and I know it. I don't really know how I know it or why I know it, but it's the only thing that makes any kind of sense, even when it doesn't actually make any kind of sense at all and ohhhhh my god you're looking at me like my editors used to before I got medicated." 

"Breathe, Jen." 

"It's Jennifer." She took a long, pointed (and very shaky) breath in through her nose, then let it out much too fast through her mouth. Duke nodded. 

"Okay." He smiled. "Good. You're Audrey's half-sister, right?" 

"Yes. Maybe. Probably? That's the current theory." 

Duke nodded and waited for her to remember to breathe again. "Audrey 'just knows' things about the troubles too. So I'm thinking you're probably right." 

"Right." Jennifer nodded. And forced herself not to pace. "But Audrey knows them because she's Mara. Am — do you think maybe I'm secretly someone else, too?" 

"I think your family is just full of people with very strong intuition." 

"My family." Jennifer shivered. "Oh my god I have a family again. I have a sister! I've never had a sister before!" 

"You have a sister?" 

Jennifer spun around. Audrey was standing in the doorway, leaning against Nathan, and looking faintly green. 

"Um," Jennifer said. She found herself doing her little nervous curtsey. "Yes. You. We're sisters. Maybe." 

Audrey tilted her head and smirked. It was a very Mara move, Jennifer felt. "I don't see it." 

Nathan just flicked her a look, his mouth quirking up at the edges. 

"Oh shut up," Audrey said, rolling her eyes and smiling for real this time. 

"You have a plan?" Nathan asked. 

"Yes! Um, come in. Close the door." She waited for them to do so. Duke carefully kicked the chair he was using as a footrest towards Audrey, stretching to rest his heel against the supply shelves instead. Audrey slumped gratefully into it and rubbed her head. 

"I really hope your plan doesn't involve getting yourself hit by a truck," she said ruefully. "Because I do _not_ recommend it." 

"Worked though," Nathan pointed out. 

"In that way where we're lucky we're not all dead, sure," Duke said. 

Jennifer watched them with a smile. This was what the ghost Duke had been talking about. Duke and Audrey and Nathan. They were the dream team. She glanced down at the cover of her book, and the four figures on the Guard symbol. They were most of the dream team. 

She wasn't sure if she was really the fourth member of that team, but she was willing to give it a shot. 

"Okay." She set the book down and stepped forward. Duke cringed back a little. "Ohhhh no. Crap. I forgot about that." 

"Oh good," Duke said. "I didn't." 

"You need to touch him?" Nathan guessed. "With your trouble. For the plan." 

"Audrey filled you in on the book thing, huh?" Jennifer asked. Nathan nodded faintly. "Well. That's, uh. Handy I guess. Okay. Um. Maybe we can make this work. But we need someone else to be the fourth person." She picked the book back up to show them the symbol, then grimaced. "You can't see this. Um. Nathan." She pointed to his arm. "Do you mind?" 

He shrugged and held his arm up. Jennifer pointed to the tattoo. "These guys, see? Four of them. We need four people, and . . . I guess I don't count. Which makes sense, I mean, I was adopted from here and all but I'm not really _from_ here. I'm not a part of Haven, like you all are." 

Duke didn't look terribly convinced. "I wouldn't call myself a part of Haven." 

"Crockers have been here since it was founded," Nathan pointed out. "Hansens too, probably." 

"And Mara," Audrey said, nodding. "Dwight. We need Dwight." 

"Ooo, yes!" Jennifer snapped and pointed at her. "He's the Chief of Police!" 

"He's also from, like, Chicago or something, isn't he?" Duke asked. 

"Not originally. He told me, way back when we were going to get Audrey back. He was born here and moved away." 

"Dwight." Nathan nodded, pulling out his phone. 

"Hey, hang on." Duke tilted his head. "How come he didn't ride along on your whole bucking Bronco plan, anyway? What, he had something better to do?" 

"Yes," Nathan said distractedly as he dialed and waited for an answer. "Dwight. It's Nathan. We need you at the hospital. Room across from Charlotte's office." His brows bounced up faintly. "Bring her along then. Good. See you soon." He hung up. "Was already on his way. He'll be here in a few minutes." 

Jennifer tilted her head. "That might be the most words I've heard you say at once." 

"So we need four people," Audrey said. "Got it. What about the maze? Do we need one of those?" 

"Nope! I think the maze is a metaphor. Like hearts. And — doors." She smiled sheepishly. "I'm kind of spitballing here." 

"No, I like it." Audrey smiled back. "Sis." 

Jennifer didn't know what to say to that, and for a long moment, the awkwardness just hung in the air between them. No one else seemed willing to break it, so finally, she did. 

"Your dad," she said. "And my mom. That's how we're sisters." 

Audrey nodded. "Okay." 

"I don't know if it was consensual." 

Oh. Nope. That just made it more awkward. Jennifer stared around the room and bit her lip and tried to think of something to say that wasn't just pointing out or adding to that massive ball of tension. 

"I mean, your dad — our dad — he's kind of a monst —" A giggle interrupted her from the hallway and Jennifer breathed a long sigh of relief. "— Oh thank god. Dwight? Is that you?" 

"That was not a Dwight noise," Duke pointed out. Nathan was smiling. Actually for real smiling. Audrey looked like she might cry. Jennifer wondered what she was missing. 

An adorable little moppet in a fuzzy hoodie creaked open the door. "Hi. You're looking for my dad?" 

"C'mon, Lizzie," Dwight said. "At least let me introduce you first." He sounded happier than Jennifer had ever heard him. Though considering how they'd met, and where they were, that wasn't hard. 

"You did it," Duke said, sounding awed. 

_Oh._

Lizzie was Dwight's dead daughter. The one that Duke's ghost told him how to bring back. And — he did. He had. This was _Dwight's daughter_ , back from the dead. 

Jennifer pressed her hand to her mouth and let herself melt backwards a little, just watching the two of them. She tried to imagine what it'd be like if her parents — her _real_ parents, the ones who'd raised her and loved her and left her much much too soon — were to suddenly come back. 

No wonder Dwight had bailed. 

"Lizzie, this is Audrey and Nathan and Duke and Jennifer. Everyone, this is Lizzie." 

Lizzie waved and tilted her head at Duke. "You look nice with a ponytail." 

"Um," Duke said, reaching self-consciously towards the back of his neck. "Thanks." 

"So," Dwight said, hands in his pockets. He looked more relaxed than Jennifer had seen before, too, even while he still wore that bulky bulletproof vest. "What's the plan?" 

"Jennifer was just explaining that we're the four figures in the Guard symbol," Audrey said. "And that the maze was a metaphor." 

Dwight nodded. "Okay." 

"It's the connection," Jennifer said. "Between the four of you. It's all . . . convoluted and weird and it doesn't really make much sense to other people, right?" 

Nathan and Duke shared a glance. Dwight just kind of shrugged. 

"It's not a perfect metaphor," Jennifer said, rolling her eyes. "Anyway. That's the heart, get it?" 

This time the glance went between all four of them. Jennifer sighed in frustration. 

"Because they all love each other?" Lizzie guessed. 

"Yes!" Jennifer grinned at her. "That's right. The heart's a metaphor, too." 

" _Omnia vincit amor,_ " Duke murmured. 

"It's that simple?" Nathan didn't sound like he believed them. 

"Um." Jennifer shrugged. "Yes and no. That's really what I think the maze and the heart and everything are supposed to be, but there's also, um. A literal heart." She looked at Duke. 

"Am I about to get ritually sacrificed?" Duke asked warily. 

". . . Probably not," Jennifer said. 

Dwight pressed his lips and his eyebrows together and bounced his head. "Yeah, I don't get it." 

"But it doesn't matter, right?" Jennifer said. "So long as it works?" 

Dwight sighed, looked at his daughter standing next to Jennifer and beaming, and relaxed. "Yeah. So long as it works." 

"Yeah, um." Duke raised his hand. "It matters to _me_. What is happening to my literal heart?" 

"I'm gonna fix it," Jennifer said. "I'm going to summon the door." 

". . . A literal door?" 

Jennifer wobbled her hand. "It's already there. There's a . . . like an extra valve, I think. In your heart. Since William messed with you. Or maybe it was part of your original trouble and he just broke it open? I'm not sure. Anyway, instead of pumping blood, it pumps aether. From the Void. That's why they couldn't get your fever down. Why you never seemed to run out of black gunk to throw up." She shrugged. "I'm guessing your blood pressure's probably been crazy high lately, too." 

"So you'll summon the door," Audrey said, nodding. "At the heart of Haven." She gestured between the four of them.

"And I'll close it," Jennifer said. "After you send all the troubles back through to the Void." 

"Oh," Audrey said, her voice gone dry. "Is that all." 

"You, um." Jennifer bit her lip. "You can do that, right? Since you've got all the Mara memories?" 

Audrey frowned, not looking at all certain about that. Jennifer felt herself shrink a little. 

"She can." 

Jennifer looked at Duke. Duke looked confused. Dwight scanned the room with a frown. Audrey sat up straighter, looking at something over Jennifer's shoulder. Lizzie grinned. "Hi Duke!" 

The Ghost of Crocker Future stood in the far corner of the room, half hidden behind the shelves behind Jennifer. He stepped out into the light, still wearing that damn sexy peacoat with the collar popped up. 

"She can," he said again, in that eerie, not-a-real-voice way. He flicked Audrey a close-lipped smile. "I remembered." 

"What are we looking at?" Duke whispered to Nathan. Nathan gave a tiny little head shake and shrug. 

"Remembered what?" Jennifer asked. 

"How I came back." Duke kept looking at Audrey. He looked . . . calmer than he had before. Less forced-spooky calm and more actually-content calm. " _Why_ I came back." 

"Why?" Audrey asked, barely more than a breath. 

"Because of you." Duke tilted his head. "Because you weren't satisfied with well-enough. You came to find me. You had a different name — and terrible hair — but you found me and you told me we could make it better." He looked at Nathan and his expression went sad. "We won last time, but we left Nathan all alone. And that wasn't fair. So you remade me, and you sent me back." 

He dropped into a crouch in front of Audrey and rested his hand on her knee. His actual hand. On her actual knee. Duke — the other Duke — and Nathan both startled and stared at him. Ghost-Duke — _future_ -Duke — the undone and remade Duke kept his eyes on Audrey. 

And opened his mouth. 

And _spoke_. 

"If you can do that, Audrey Parker," he said, in a voice so ephemeral it made Audrey's 'why?' seem loud. "I think you can handle a couple thousand troubles." He finally looked around, making eye contact with each of them in turn before coming back to Audrey. "With some help from a few friends." 

Audrey had tears in her eyes. She reached up, but when it looked like her hand was going to touch Duke's cheek, he suddenly wasn't there anymore. He hadn't moved, was still crouched there with his hand on her knee, but his cheek was always just past the end of her fingers. 

"Yeah," she said. And watched as Duke went transparent, and faded into smoke. "Okay." She closed her eyes, clenching her hands into fists. Nathan gave her shoulder a squeeze. Duke — the current one, now the _only_ one again — looked like he wanted to be sick. 

Audrey opened her eyes again and reached for Duke's hand. Jennifer could swear she felt something snap into place when she made contact, like she'd just completed a circuit. She looked up at Jennifer. 

"Tell us what to do." 

"What?" Jennifer blinked at her, then shook herself a little. "Right. Time to get started. Okay!" She clapped her hands. 

And had absolutely no idea what to tell them to do. 

"Okay," she said again, with rather less enthusiasm. She turned in a circle, surveying the room. 

A circle. 

She could work with circles. 

"Okay, all of you hold hands." 

Audrey was already holding Duke's. Nathan switched easily from holding Audrey's shoulder to her other hand, and reached for Dwight's. Duke looked at Dwight and shook his head sharply. 

"Yeah, no. I'm pretty sure me puking uncontrollably would be counterproductive." 

Jennifer winced. "Crap. Right. William kind of fucked that up, huh." Why couldn't any of this be easy? "Okay, okay, I can work with this. Audrey, Nathan, and Dwight, you all hold hands _around_ Duke." 

Duke shifted in his chair, pulling his injured leg in, as the others stood and circled around him. He pressed his lips together, staring up at them, and shook his head. "Yeah, I think maybe I want to be standing for this." 

Nathan let go of Audrey and Dwight to pull the chair out of the way as Duke stood, then visibly had to restrain himself from offering his arm while Duke got himself balanced on one leg. 

"You good?" Nathan asked. Duke didn't look 'good' at all — that juice and cookie had probably barely made a dent in his blood loss — but he nodded anyway. 

"Let's just get this over with." 

"Yep. Cool." Jennifer walked around them as best she could. They were kind of running out of room, with so many people and the shelves and chairs. "Now . . . I guess I summon the door." 

Duke folded his hands into his chest, his left carefully cradling his injured right. Audrey and Nathan shut their eyes, lifting their chins in an eerie sort of unison. Dwight looked between them all, then at Jennifer, a question in his eyes. 

". . . I don't know how to summon the door," Jennifer admitted. "Unless maybe I just hit Duke in the head with my book." 

"No thank you," Duke said. 

"Concentrate," a voice said from the doorway. 

Jennifer wished McHugh was still around to stand guard. Too many people were just walking in here. 

"Oh good," Audrey — Mara — said without opening her eyes. "Mom's here." 

Dr. Cross ignored her. She closed the door behind her and strode over to Jennifer with purpose. "You're trying to work with the aether, right?" she asked. "You didn't grow up with it, the way Mara did, but at least half your genes come from our world, so you're able to exert some control." 

"Actually, I was kind of hoping to use my trouble?" Jennifer said. She looked at her book. "Which I guess means I _shouldn't_ use this." 

"Your trouble _is_ aether," Dr. Cross said, taking the book in both hands and gently tugging it from Jennifer's. "So it's the same thing. Aether is psychoreactive. It responds to your mind, your emotions." 

Jennifer nodded slowly. "Then everybody needs to close their eyes," she decided, turning back to her little ritual circle. Dwight, Audrey, and Nathan were already doing it. Duke gave her a quick, uncertain look, then shut his, though he looked deeply unhappy about it. "Good," Jennifer said. She took a deep breath through her nose and closed her own eyes. "Now . . . picture the aether. The little black goo-balls. One in every troubled person, deep down inside. In their hearts. Their souls." 

She could see it, in her mind's eye. The little black ball at the center of herself. It throbbed with power, radiating it through her whole body. Power that reached out, seeking access. Passage. 

Doors. 

_Bada-thump-thump. Bada-thump-thump._

She followed the sound, the _da_ and the _thump_ , and she found it, the smallest door in the world, deep inside Duke's chest. It was thick and sturdy, made of weathered metal painted black, with a wheel for a handle, like the doors on Duke's boat. It was cracked open on rusty hinges, and Jennifer knew at a glance that it was going to be a bear to close. 

"Jennifer?" a voice called. It sounded far away, and she couldn't tell who it belonged to, if they were male or female or neither or both, or which side of the door they might be on. "Jennifer. What next?" 

"Do you see it?" Jennifer asked, sounding vague even to her own ears. "I found it. I found the door." 

"Jennifer." The voice was firmer now. Stern. Maybe a little proud. " _Concentrate_." 

"We need to send them back," Jennifer remembered. "We need to send all the troubles back. Mara." 

"Working on it." That was a different voice. Jennifer was suddenly solidly present again, in a too small room that was, she realized, rapidly filling with little black aether goo-balls. She could feel their energy as they brushed past her, rushing to the center of the circle. To the door. 

Duke let out a horrible, choking noise, and Jennifer snapped her eyes open. 

She could barely see him through the swarm of troubles, but she had no problem at all making out his eyes: wide open, and a solid, glowing silver. 

Jennifer faltered, and the trouble swarm shifted, spiralling out instead of in, trying to return to their hosts. As it cleared, she could see Duke more clearly. His head was thrown back, his spine curved, his chest out, as though he were stretching it towards the sky. Black fluid leaked from his mouth and nose, then lifted off his face in drops to join the swarm. 

It wasn't working. The troubles they'd tried to push through the door were getting cooked, processed by Duke's trouble, and pouring right back out. 

_It's like a valve,_ Jennifer had said earlier. Valves were only built to work in one direction at a time. The door was letting aether in from the Void, but not back out. She had to reverse the flow somehow. She shut her eyes again and pictured the door and _shoved_ with all her might. 

The door squealed. Or maybe Duke did. Something — not aether, it was too alive, too _conscious_ to be aether — shoved back. 

_My peach,_ the something said. _My little sweatpea. I didn't recognize you, after all these years. . . ._

"I," Jennifer spat through clenched teeth. "Am not. Your _sweetpea!_ My name is _Jennifer!!_ " 

The door, Duke, the consciousness on the other side in the Void, maybe even Jennifer herself _screamed_. 

And the tide shifted. 

The troubles in the air swarmed, then swirled, then flowed, a steady, powerful stream back through the door into the Void. Jennifer felt the one in her own chest pull away, spaghettify, then let go with an almost audible _pop_ that resonated through her whole being. For a moment she despaired — without her trouble, how could she control the door? — but as the last bit of aether slipped through to the other side, the door snapped shut, and the world went silent and empty and utterly, utterly dark.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I CAN'T BELIEVE I WROTE THE WHOLE THING! 
> 
> Thank you so much for sticking with this story and this series. You all are amazing, and I love you!

She couldn't breathe. 

Jennifer had been an anxious child, prone to an overwhelming sense that she _didn't belong_. She'd known, of course, that she was adopted; her parents had never hid it, and she'd been raised to believe that this made her special, not less-than. She was lucky, because her parents had wanted her _so much_ that they'd filled out forms and paid fees and waited and waited for years to get her. So she never understood why she didn't belong, or why she was so, _so_ afraid of the dark. 

It didn't matter, though. Because when that feeling got too much, when it filled up her chest and pressed down on her lungs and made her feel like she might die at any moment, her parents had been there. They didn't know the term "panic attack", but they knew what to do anyway. They'd hold her, and hug her, and reassure her, and if that didn't help, they'd get her to sing with them. You couldn't sing without controlling your breath. What would start shaky and gasping would eventually even out. 

_Puff the Magic Dragon lived by the sea_

It was that voice again, the one that wasn't male or female, but both. Her mom and dad, deep in her heart. Reminding her she belonged. 

Sing, Jennifer.

_And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honahlee_

I can't, she thought. This isn't a panic attack. There's something wrong. 

Breathe, Jennifer.

I can't. I want to, but I can't. I'm going to die. I opened the door at the heart of Haven and just like Duke said I'm going to _die_ — 

_A dragon lives forever, not so little girls_

Please, Jennifer.

There was a hand on her face, cupping her cheek. Another in her hair, stroking it back from her forehead. They were warm hands, soft hands, their touches full of love, and Jennifer wished with all her heart that they really could belong to her parents. 

She opened her eyes, and saw who they belonged to. 

"That's it, Jennifer. Come on back." 

"Dr. Cross," Jennifer murmured. 

"Call me Charlotte." She smiled, lifting her thumb to wipe something wet from Jennifer's cheek. "We're family." 

"I see how it is," a voice said. "You like her best." 

Jennifer looked over Charlotte's shoulder to see blue eyes, full of Audrey's warmth and Mara's mischief. 

"Did it work?" Jennifer asked. 

Audrey shifted to help her sit up. "See for yourself." 

Jennifer wasn't the only one who'd hit the floor, it seemed. Dwight was on his knees, yanking at the velcro that held his vest together even as his daughter clung to his back. Duke was all but in Nathan's lap, his hair stuck to his face with sweat, his eyes closed. He was panting faintly, but clearly in no danger of throwing up, no matter how tightly Nathan clung to him. And Nathan _clung_ , one arm wrapped firmly around Duke's waist, his other hand tucked into the collar of Duke's shirt. He had his face pressed into Duke's hair. Jennifer could see shudders running through them both from across the room. 

"Think I may have just lost my boyfriend to his ex," Audrey said, eyebrow raised. "What do you think?" 

All Jennifer could do was laugh.

* * *

Jennifer still only knew one restaurant in town, though she felt she knew several more people, now. She'd become something of a regular here in the last week, after _finally_ getting a full CT scan and then a clean bill of health at the hospital. She kept hoping to find Duke here. 

Today was the first time he finally was, though. 

Duke gave her a broad, customer-servicey smile and leaned against the bar, rag clenched in his left hand. "What can I get you?" 

"Margarita," Jennifer declared. "On the rocks, with salt." She twisted a little on her bar stool. "Look at you, all upright and almost tan again!" 

Duke's smile lost some of the 'for the public' sheen as he grabbed a margarita glass, which made it about fifteen times nicer. "Thanks. Gloria wouldn't let me go home quite yet, but she has a _very_ nice backyard she was happy to let me convalesce in." 

Jennifer nodded, folding and refolding her hands. Why was it easier to talk to this guy when he was in a hospital bed than when he was behind a bar? What did that say about her? 

"You heard about William?" she tried. 

"Everyone's heard. The headline took up like half the front page of the _Herald_." 

Jennifer wrinkled her nose. "They maybe went a little overboard." 

"They got to print the absolute truth for once. Mysterious criminal escapes from HPD custody, current whereabouts unknown. If you have any information, call blah blah blah." 

"There's no more aether, at least," Jennifer said. "So he's not really a threat anymore, right?" She watched him run a lime around the rim of her glass, then flip the glass over to add the salt, all with his left hand. 

"Plenty of ways to be a dangerous asshole even without magic," he said. "Trust me." 

"Charlotte says she'll find him. Drag him back to their world to stand trial." 

"You'll forgive me if I don't fully trust what Charlotte says." 

Jennifer watched him as he tossed the used lime and put the salt away, then limped down the bar a few steps to fill a shaker with ice. "But you're okay now, right?" she asked, frowning. "No more, um." She mimed a small gag. Duke flicked her a faint smile. 

"No more of any of that. I've been keeping down solid foods and running a perfectly normal temperature for days now." 

"That's great!" Jennifer cheered. "It feels weird to cheer for that. But — everything else is healing too, right? Like your leg?" 

"It's getting there," Duke agreed. He twisted to grab the various liquors and mixers, tucking two under his right arm and holding the third by the neck in his left. He set them one by one on the bar in front of her, then gave his right hand an experimental stretch before using it to pick up the tequila. 

Jennifer watched carefully, remembering the exercises he'd had to do in the hospital. She'd been afraid to ask what the actual prognosis for recovery was, if he expected to get full use of it back. 

Duke fumbled the bottle with a curse, spilling tequila across the bar top. He set the bottle aside and shook his hand out, then leaned his weight into both hands on the bar, dropping his head and just breathing while his barback swooped in to wipe up the spill. 

"So," he said, his tone dark. He slowly stood up straight again. "That'd be why Gloria ixnayed going back to my boat alone." 

"I'm sorry," Jennifer said, wishing there was something else she could do. She didn't know anything about hand rehabilitation, though. "You screwed it up trying to save me." 

"You nearly died saving all of us," Duke said, shrugging. He let go of the bar and flashed his barback a little, grateful smile. "The troubles are over. Apparently for good this time." He stared into his open palm, watching his fingers twitch and shake. "Bum hand doesn't really seem like much compared to all that." 

It did if he couldn't live the way he wanted. Jennifer watched as he mixed her drink, shook it up, poured it into the glass, then topped it with a straw and a little pink umbrella. All with just his left hand. 

"Maybe," she said slowly, then looked up at him. "Maybe you could ask Nathan and Audrey for help?" 

There was a flicker of something, hope, maybe, then a flash of pain before his face settled into a more neutral expression. 

"Nathan and Audrey have each other." 

"And . . . that means they can't have you, too?" 

"Historically, yeah." 

Jennifer nodded, leaning in to sip margarita through her straw. She looked up at him past the ribs of her little umbrella and decided she didn't care about being awkward. He needed someone who was open and honest with him. And besides, _this_ she felt like she knew a thing or two about. 

"Bullshit." 

Duke chuckled. "Excuse me?" 

"I'm from Boston, Duke." She sat up and folded her arms on the bar. "Do you have any idea how many different kinds of relationships there are in the world, once you get outside of Maine?" 

Duke's expression went on _quite_ the adventure at that. He frowned. Pursed his lips. Tilted his head. Opened his mouth, then closed it. Looked at her quizzically. Trying, she was sure, to decide just how innocent she really was. 

Jennifer sat sipping her margarita and watched the whole thing with wide, girl-next-door eyes, and waited to see what he decided. 

"That's not how things work up here," he said finally. 

"Like that's going to stop Duke Crocker," Jennifer scoffed. "Or Audrey Parker, for that matter. _Definitely_ wouldn't stop Mara." 

"Might stop Nathan Wuornos, though." 

"I don't know, you didn't see how he was petting you at the hospital." 

"He'd _just_ gotten back the ability to feel," Duke protested. "That doesn't count!" 

Jennifer sipped her drink. "I haven't been up here that long? But I think maybe things work a little bit that way after all. If you know where to look." 

Duke studied her for a long moment. "This because of what the other me said? About us being in love in the other timeline? If I'm in a throuple, why not a whole polycule?" 

"No?" Jennifer shrugged. "Maybe a little. You're pretty cute." 

Duke's mouth curved up on one side, and he bopped his head. 

"And also _really_ clearly in love with two other people." The smile dropped back into a frown and he opened his mouth to protest. Jennifer barrelled right on. "So . . . yeah. Why not try something new? It's a new Haven, right? No more troubles. Seems to me we get to make up our own rules now." 

Duke looked down at his hand, opening and closing his fingers again. "I never have been a big fan of other people's rules." 

"Good." Jennifer grinned, glad she didn't have to add in the other reason: that she felt like Duke could use all the extra love he could get. 

"Okay." Duke sighed. "Fine. Maybe I'll mention it." He leaned forward and held out his right hand, twitchy fingers and all. " _If_ you'll mention it to Dwight." 

Jennifer felt herself blush. "Noticed that, huh." 

Duke smiled, pulling his hand back again and folding his arms against the bar. "I have eyes, yes." 

"He's busy, right now. He _just_ got Lizzie back."

Duke tilted his head, and nodded slowly. "Fair. Alright. Maybe don't immediately jump his bones. Doesn't mean you can't ask him out though, does it?" 

"Assuming McHugh will let me?" Jennifer shrugged. "I kind of tried that once, actually. We ended up getting aether balls shoved in our ears by a creep and trying to kill each other." 

". . . That is the traditional Haven first date," Duke said, laughing. 

"Why does anyone live here?" Jennifer asked. 

"I've been wondering that my whole life." Duke looked around. "And yet, here I am." 

Jennifer knew why he was here, so she just smiled around her straw. 

"You're sticking around," Duke observed. 

"I don't really have much waiting for me back in Boston," Jennifer pointed out. "No job. No family. Up here . . . I have a sister. And a — whatever Charlotte is." 

"And two potential boyfriends." 

"Mmhm!" She grinned, watching his expression closely. "Maybe I'll pick out some girlfriends, too. Do you think Jordan swings both ways? I'm pretty sure Mara does. Too bad she's my sister." 

"Jennifer Mason." Duke grinned. "You are kinda dirty!" 

Jennifer gave him her biggest, most innocent, manic-pixie-dream eyes. "I don't know what you're talking about." 

"Well. I for one am glad you're sticking around." He leaned on the counter, his hands tucked into his elbows. "Whether I end up one of those boyfriends or not." 

Jennifer let go of all her teasing pretense and just smiled back at him. "Me too." She put her hand out on the bar, palm up, and waited for him to take it before she continued. "Thank you." 

Duke tilted his head. "For what? Dragging you into hell?" 

"Yeah." She squeezed his hand. Gently, it was his bad one. His fingers felt cold. She wondered if it was just because she was so used to him running a fever, or if it was a side effect of whatever had gone wrong with it. She wanted to scoop it up, rub it between both of hers and blow on his fingers until they warmed up again. "And for telling me I wasn't crazy. And trusting me when I said I knew how to fix all this." She took a deep breath. "And for coming back in time. I know that wasn't _you_ -you, but it was you. 

"You saved me, Duke Crocker." 

Duke looked at their clasped hands, then up at her through his own lashes. And those weirdly sexy bang-things that always hung in his face. 

"You saved me back."


End file.
